Latest news with #LordHoweIsland
Gizmodo
27-05-2025
- Health
- Gizmodo
These Birds Are So Stuffed With Plastic, You Can Hear Them Crunch
A dead baby bird—found with 778 pieces of plastic in its stomach—has shattered a grim 15-year record. Squeaky stuffed animals are endearing. But when the animal is a real baby bird and its stomach makes crunching noises from all the plastic it has ingested, the endearment quickly turns into a dystopian nightmare. This, however, is not happening in a faraway dystopia. Scientists from the Adrift Lab ocean research group were horrified to discover 'crunchy birds' on Australia's UNESCO World Heritage-listed Lord Howe Island. What's more, on their first day of fieldwork on the island this year, the researchers found a dead baby bird that had ingested 778 pieces of plastic, breaking the lab's 15-year record for the greatest amount of plastic ingested by a single bird—and by a long shot. 'This year we decided we're no longer going to say to each other 'it can't possibly get worse' because each year it just does,' the researchers wrote in an Adrift Lab news release. 'Terms like 'unprecedented' and 'horrific' really don't do it justice. As scientists on the front lines of the environment/pollution/biodiversity crises, we can barely begin to describe what witnessing this for two decades has done to our mental and physical well being.' The team visits the island every year to monitor the impact of plastic pollution on shearwaters—dark-colored, long-winged migratory seabirds, as reported by CNN. Though the cases and quantities of ingested plastic have been rising, this year's fieldwork 'left us all speechless,' Adrift Lab marine biologist Jennifer Lavers, who was on the island, told CNN. Lavers and her colleagues think parent birds are mistaking plastic for food, and feeding it to their chicks. A total of 778 plastic pieces in the bird, which died when it was between 80 and 90 days old, suggests its parents fed it approximately 10 pieces of plastic litter per day. The previous record was around 400 pieces, according to the lab's statement. 'This bird, and so many others in recent years, now contain such enormous quantities of plastic that when our research team gently presses on their stomachs, we hear awful crunching noises as the plastics shift around inside,' the researchers wrote. 'We literally call them 'crunchy birds' because…what other name could we give them.' Alex Bond, an ecologist at Adrift Lab, tells the Washington Post that they can even hear it in some live birds. And it's not just microplastics, which scientists have already found everywhere from chewing gum to human testicles and brains. Bond reported finding objects as large as bottle caps and takeaway soy sauce fish bottles, as well as cutlery, clothes pegs, and countless amounts of unidentified hunks of plastic. The ingested plastic is, unsurprisingly, harming the birds. During dissections, the team found scarring on the birds' kidneys and hearts, as well as 'dementia-like' brain damage in baby shearwaters, according to CNN. 'They don't kill the animal instantly, but they do cause it to have a shorter life span (and) lots of pain and suffering,' Lavers told CNN. Furthermore, she and her colleagues have noted a consistent decrease in the birds' body mass and wingspan over the years. This spring, Australian Senator Peter Whish-Wilson traveled to Lord Howe Island along with the researchers. 'I wish every politician and every decision maker in parliaments around the world, because this is a global problem, I wish they could all experience what I experienced just for 24 hours, to come down here and do it themselves, and then they'll get it,' he told ABC Australia. 'We are not winning the war on waste.' Scientists often treat seabirds as marine ecosystem health indicators, looking to them to understand how our oceans are doing. These sentinels are sending us a stark warning.
ABC News
24-05-2025
- ABC News
New transport era on Lord Howe Island as Qantas touches down for final time
On remote Lord Howe Island, historical eras have been largely defined not by leaders or monarchs but modes of transport, which provide a critical connection to mainland Australia. The island's transport eras have spanned from 1834 when the first island settlers used whaling boats, to the romanticised post-World War II flying boat era, through to the past three decades when Qantas has served the island community. "The history of an extremely isolated place like Lord Howe Island, 586 kilometres from the closest point on the Australian coast, is always defined by transport and communication," Lord Howe Island resident and historian Chris Murray said. "How one gets on and off that isolated place." Recently the final Qantas-branded and crewed plane touched down on Lord Howe Island's tiny airstrip. It marks an emotional end of an era for island residents and a crowd gathered under rainy skies to wave goodbye to the final flight. "There were lots of tears," Lord Howe resident Bronwyn Tofaeono said. Qantas has held the route licence since 1991, but is phasing out its Dash-8 Q200 series, the only aircraft in its fleet able to operate on Lord Howe Island's very short runway. Regional carrier, north Queensland-based Skytrans is now transitioning in to take over the route and rebranding the planes. Ms Tofaeono said, over the decades, their community connection to the airline and the route's regular pilots and crew had developed into something that went far beyond just transport. "The Qantas Dash 8 has become more than just a plane to us," she said. "It brought our newborn babies home, carried our children to and from boarding school, and connected us with the world beyond our shores. "After my father passed away, I will never forget the moment we brought him home — the Qantas crew stood quietly on the tarmac as his coffin was unloaded. "It was an act of profound respect that I will carry with me forever." Mr Murray managed ground operations at Lord Howe for Qantas for nearly three decades, from 1991 to 2020. He said planes sometimes needed to stay overnight on the island due to bad weather or breakdowns, and friendships had developed between the pilots and crew and island families. "Quite a number [of pilots and crew] come out on holidays to see us as they've developed attachments to the place," Mr Murray said. Island resident Cindy Shick worked with Mr Murray as a Qantas agent for almost 30 years. "For many of us, you go over to the mainland, and you come back with your baby," Ms Shick said. "There's a generation of kids who've never flown on anything but QantasLink as they came back in their mum's arms." Ms Shick's husband, fifth-generation islander Jack Shick, said the ending of the Qantas era was a significant milestone. Lord Howe Island's flying boat era spanned from 1947 to 1974 and Qantas operated the large craft until 1951. Ansett later took over and Mr Murray's father was the Ansett manager on Lord Howe Island from 1958 to 1974. "The flying boats were just exceptional," Mr Murray said. "We are all flying boat 'tragics' on Lord Howe. "We love the era [and] seeing the grace of a very large aircraft skimming across the lagoon. "The aircraft could only alight here at high tide … quite a swell can come in over our reef, so the runway, if I can term it that, was rather uneven at times." Mr Shick said many island residents had fond memories of the flying boat days. "They [flying boats] were very comfortable, the seats were like small lounge chairs and when a meal was served it came on a proper plate, [with a] knife and fork, nothing like air travel nowadays," he said. "The highlight of the trip was landing on the crystal-clear waters of the lagoon. QantasLink chief operating officer Nick Collie said, moving forward, the airline would have a codeshare partnership with Skytrans and would continue a connection with Lord Howe Island. "As a nod to our longstanding history … we will be naming one of our newest A321 XLR aircraft, Seven Peaks Walk, after the iconic Lord Howe Island track," Mr Collie said. Skytrans has been awarded the licence to operate the regulated route to Lord Howe Island until March 2030, and its transition mode with Qantas ends in February 2026, after which it will exclusively operate all flights. Skytrans CEO Alan Milne said: "Skytrans is honoured to be able to continue this essential air service and looks forward to working closely with the Lord Howe Island community to ensure a safe, reliable and customer-focused operation continues."
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
The birds on this tiny, remote island are so full of plastic their bellies crunch
On a remote, crescent-shaped island surrounded by crystal-clear ocean live some of the most plastic-contaminated birds in the world. They have bellies so full of fragments, they crunch when touched. Lord Howe Island — a speck of land about 370 miles off mainland Australia, home to just a few hundred people — is the breeding ground for tens of thousands of sable shearwaters: dark brown-colored, long-winged ocean birds with strong hooked bills. Scientists from the ocean research group Adrift Lab have been visiting for nearly two decades to monitor these birds' exposure to plastic pollution. Every year they find more contamination, but this year was shocking, said Jennifer Lavers, a marine biologist and coordinator of Adrift Lab, who recently returned from the island. Shearwaters were found with levels of plastic far exceeding anything the scientists had seen before. They discovered an extraordinary 778 pieces of plastic inside one chick alone, smashing the previous record of 403 pieces. It 'left us all speechless,' Lavers said. The scientists are now trying to solve the mystery of why this year was so bad. Plastic pollution is on the rise but 'does that explain a doubling in 12 months? Absolutely not,' she told CNN. 'So there's something else going on.' Seabirds are often referred to as sentinels for ocean health, and the story they're telling is alarming. Global populations have declined 70% over the last 50 years as they grapple with multiple threats, including from invasive species, the fishing industry and climate change. Plastic pollution is yet another danger and a particularly 'insidious' one as its impacts are so hard to detect, said Richard Phillips, a seabird ecologist at the British Antarctic Survey. Lord Howe Island offers a unique natural laboratory for studying seabirds. The shearwaters reliably come back to the same breeding colony each year , usually within inches of the same burrow, allowing scientists to track individual birds' progress. 'There's nowhere else in the world that I can think of where we could do a study like this,' Lavers said. The scientists visit every April and May, when the chicks are leaving their burrows for the first time and preparing to take their first big migration to the Sea of Japan. Shearwaters are nocturnal, so every dawn, the scientists go to the beach to find chicks that were too weak and emaciated to make the flight. They bring them back to the lab to examine them. 'We often see high levels of plastic in these birds,' said Alix de Jersey, a researcher at the University of Tasmania. The scientists return to the beach at night to analyze the healthier birds getting ready to fly. They 'lavage' them using a feeding tube, gently pumping water into their stomachs to make them vomit up the plastic. The process may not be pleasant, de Jersey said, but 'it's just fantastic knowing that that bird is starting its migration without this huge load of plastic within its stomach.' Most of the plastic found in the birds this year was made up of unidentifiable fragments but they also found bottle caps, tile dividers and large amounts of plastic cutlery, de Jersey told CNN. The plastic accumulates inside the birds' bodies and can form a kind of brick. The pollution is so crammed into some shearwaters, it's audible. 'You can hear the crunching of the bottle caps and the shards and things shifting and moving against each other,' Lavers said. The scientists believe most plastic is ingested due to parents accidentally feeding it to their chicks, instead of the fish and squid that make up their usual diet. Plastic may smell good to birds because of the algae that can coat it, said Matthew Savoca, a marine ecologist at the California Marine Sanctuary Foundation and Stanford University. 'Other times, birds may eat something that has already eaten plastic,' he told CNN. Shearwaters are particularly vulnerable because, while some birds will regularly throw up what they cannot digest, shearwaters 'only tend to regurgitate when feeding their chicks. The structure of their gut also means that plastic items are retained for a long time,' said Bethany Clark, senior seabird science officer at the conservation group BirdLife International. Scientists are still trying to unpick the health impacts; many are largely invisible. The Adrift Lab scientists take blood samples and dissect the dead birds. This year, as soon as they opened up the shearwaters, it was obvious there were 'systemic issues,' de Jersey said. She found scarring on the birds' kidneys and hearts. Plastic can block birds' intestines or cause starvation, but there are also 'sub-lethal' effects, Lavers said. 'They don't kill the animal instantly, but they do cause it to have a shorter life span (and) lots of pain and suffering.' Big pieces of plastic can dig into the birds' stomachs, causing excessive amounts of scar tissue. Microplastics might pass through the birds but leave a trail of toxic chemicals. The Adrift Lab team have even found eating plastic can cause 'dementia-like' brain damage in shearwater chicks. Over the last decade, the team has seen a very consistent decline in the birds' body mass, wing length and other measures. Lavers used to consistently find chicks too heavy for her 1 kilogram scales (2.2 pounds), but now the very heaviest top out at about 800 grams (1.8 pounds). What's happening to the birds on Lord Howe Island is 'truly troubling,' said Kimberly Warner, senior scientist at Oceana, an ocean conservation organization. Global plastic pollution is only getting worse, especially as cheap, single-use plastics — the vast majority made from planet-heating fossil fuels — continue to flood the market. An estimated 33 billion pounds of plastic waste enter the oceans each year, roughly equivalent to two garbage trucks-full dumped in every minute, according to Oceana. It takes centuries to break down. Horrifying images of dead albatrosses with clusters of colorful plastic spilling from their bodies, turtles eating plastic bags and whales entangled in plastic fishing nets are testament to how this pollution is affecting marine life. 'It's a crisis, and it's rapidly worsening,' said Lavers, who is still reeling from what they found on Lord Howe Island this year. 'I don't have words. I don't know how to explain what it is that I'm seeing.'
CNN
23-05-2025
- Science
- CNN
The birds on this tiny, remote island are so full of plastic their bellies crunch
Animal storiesFacebookTweetLink Follow On a remote, crescent-shaped island surrounded by crystal-clear ocean live some of the most plastic-contaminated birds in the world. They have bellies so full of fragments, they crunch when touched. Lord Howe Island — a speck of land about 370 miles off mainland Australia, home to just a few hundred people — is the breeding ground for tens of thousands of sable shearwaters: dark brown-colored, long-winged ocean birds with strong hooked bills. Scientists from the ocean research group Adrift Lab have been visiting for nearly two decades to monitor these birds' exposure to plastic pollution. Every year they find more contamination, but this year was shocking, said Jennifer Lavers, a marine biologist and coordinator of Adrift Lab, who recently returned from the island. Shearwaters were found with levels of plastic far exceeding anything the scientists had seen before. They discovered an extraordinary 778 pieces of plastic inside one chick alone, smashing the previous record of 403 pieces. It 'left us all speechless,' Lavers said. The scientists are now trying to solve the mystery of why this year was so bad. Plastic pollution is on the rise but 'does that explain a doubling in 12 months? Absolutely not,' she told CNN. 'So there's something else going on.' Seabirds are often referred to as sentinels for ocean health, and the story they're telling is alarming. Global populations have declined 70% over the last 50 years as they grapple with multiple threats, including from invasive species, the fishing industry and climate change. Plastic pollution is yet another danger and a particularly 'insidious' one as its impacts are so hard to detect, said Richard Phillips, a seabird ecologist at the British Antarctic Survey. Lord Howe Island offers a unique natural laboratory for studying seabirds. The shearwaters reliably come back to the same breeding colony each year, usually within inches of the same burrow, allowing scientists to track individual birds' progress. 'There's nowhere else in the world that I can think of where we could do a study like this,' Lavers said. The scientists visit every April and May, when the chicks are leaving their burrows for the first time and preparing to take their first big migration to the Sea of Japan. Shearwaters are nocturnal, so every dawn, the scientists go to the beach to find chicks that were too weak and emaciated to make the flight. They bring them back to the lab to examine them. 'We often see high levels of plastic in these birds,' said Alix de Jersey, a researcher at the University of Tasmania. The scientists return to the beach at night to analyze the healthier birds getting ready to fly. They 'lavage' them using a feeding tube, gently pumping water into their stomachs to make them vomit up the plastic. The process may not be pleasant, de Jersey said, but 'it's just fantastic knowing that that bird is starting its migration without this huge load of plastic within its stomach.' Most of the plastic found in the birds this year was made up of unidentifiable fragments but they also found bottle caps, tile dividers and large amounts of plastic cutlery, de Jersey told CNN. The plastic accumulates inside the birds' bodies and can form a kind of brick. The pollution is so crammed into some shearwaters, it's audible. 'You can hear the crunching of the bottle caps and the shards and things shifting and moving against each other,' Lavers said. Listen to plastic crunching inside birds Sable shearwater birds on Australia's Lord Howe Island are so full of plastic their bellies make an audible crunching sound when scientists touch them. Source: Dr Jennifer Lavers/Adrift Lab The scientists believe most plastic is ingested due to parents accidentally feeding it to their chicks, instead of the fish and squid that make up their usual diet. Plastic may smell good to birds because of the algae that can coat it, said Matthew Savoca, a marine ecologist at the California Marine Sanctuary Foundation and Stanford University. 'Other times, birds may eat something that has already eaten plastic,' he told CNN. Shearwaters are particularly vulnerable because, while some birds will regularly throw up what they cannot digest, shearwaters 'only tend to regurgitate when feeding their chicks. The structure of their gut also means that plastic items are retained for a long time,' said Bethany Clark, senior seabird science officer at the conservation group BirdLife International. Scientists are still trying to unpick the health impacts; many are largely invisible. The Adrift Lab scientists take blood samples and dissect the dead birds. This year, as soon as they opened up the shearwaters, it was obvious there were 'systemic issues,' de Jersey said. She found scarring on the birds' kidneys and hearts. Plastic can block birds' intestines or cause starvation, but there are also 'sub-lethal' effects, Lavers said. 'They don't kill the animal instantly, but they do cause it to have a shorter life span (and) lots of pain and suffering.' Big pieces of plastic can dig into the birds' stomachs, causing excessive amounts of scar tissue. Microplastics might pass through the birds but leave a trail of toxic chemicals. The Adrift Lab team have even found eating plastic can cause 'dementia-like' brain damage in shearwater chicks. Over the last decade, the team has seen a very consistent decline in the birds' body mass, wing length and other measures. Lavers used to consistently find chicks too heavy for her 1 kilogram scales (2.2 pounds), but now the very heaviest top out at about 800 grams (1.8 pounds). What's happening to the birds on Lord Howe Island is 'truly troubling,' said Kimberly Warner, senior scientist at Oceana, an ocean conservation organization. Global plastic pollution is only getting worse, especially as cheap, single-use plastics — the vast majority made from planet-heating fossil fuels — continue to flood the market. An estimated 33 billion pounds of plastic waste enter the oceans each year, roughly equivalent to two garbage trucks-full dumped in every minute, according to Oceana. It takes centuries to break down. Horrifying images of dead albatrosses with clusters of colorful plastic spilling from their bodies, turtles eating plastic bags and whales entangled in plastic fishing nets are testament to how this pollution is affecting marine life. 'It's a crisis, and it's rapidly worsening,' said Lavers, who is still reeling from what they found on Lord Howe Island this year. 'I don't have words. I don't know how to explain what it is that I'm seeing.'
CNN
23-05-2025
- Science
- CNN
The birds on this tiny, remote island are so full of plastic their bellies crunch
Animal storiesFacebookTweetLink Follow On a remote, crescent-shaped island surrounded by crystal-clear ocean live some of the most plastic-contaminated birds in the world. They have bellies so full of fragments, they crunch when touched. Lord Howe Island — a speck of land about 370 miles off mainland Australia, home to just a few hundred people — is the breeding ground for tens of thousands of sable shearwaters: dark brown-colored, long-winged ocean birds with strong hooked bills. Scientists from the ocean research group Adrift Lab have been visiting for nearly two decades to monitor these birds' exposure to plastic pollution. Every year they find more contamination, but this year was shocking, said Jennifer Lavers, a marine biologist and coordinator of Adrift Lab, who recently returned from the island. Shearwaters were found with levels of plastic far exceeding anything the scientists had seen before. They discovered an extraordinary 778 pieces of plastic inside one chick alone, smashing the previous record of 403 pieces. It 'left us all speechless,' Lavers said. The scientists are now trying to solve the mystery of why this year was so bad. Plastic pollution is on the rise but 'does that explain a doubling in 12 months? Absolutely not,' she told CNN. 'So there's something else going on.' Seabirds are often referred to as sentinels for ocean health, and the story they're telling is alarming. Global populations have declined 70% over the last 50 years as they grapple with multiple threats, including from invasive species, the fishing industry and climate change. Plastic pollution is yet another danger and a particularly 'insidious' one as its impacts are so hard to detect, said Richard Phillips, a seabird ecologist at the British Antarctic Survey. Lord Howe Island offers a unique natural laboratory for studying seabirds. The shearwaters reliably come back to the same breeding colony each year, usually within inches of the same burrow, allowing scientists to track individual birds' progress. 'There's nowhere else in the world that I can think of where we could do a study like this,' Lavers said. The scientists visit every April and May, when the chicks are leaving their burrows for the first time and preparing to take their first big migration to the Sea of Japan. Shearwaters are nocturnal, so every dawn, the scientists go to the beach to find chicks that were too weak and emaciated to make the flight. They bring them back to the lab to examine them. 'We often see high levels of plastic in these birds,' said Alix de Jersey, a researcher at the University of Tasmania. The scientists return to the beach at night to analyze the healthier birds getting ready to fly. They 'lavage' them using a feeding tube, gently pumping water into their stomachs to make them vomit up the plastic. The process may not be pleasant, de Jersey said, but 'it's just fantastic knowing that that bird is starting its migration without this huge load of plastic within its stomach.' Most of the plastic found in the birds this year was made up of unidentifiable fragments but they also found bottle caps, tile dividers and large amounts of plastic cutlery, de Jersey told CNN. The plastic accumulates inside the birds' bodies and can form a kind of brick. The pollution is so crammed into some shearwaters, it's audible. 'You can hear the crunching of the bottle caps and the shards and things shifting and moving against each other,' Lavers said. Listen to plastic crunching inside birds Sable shearwater birds on Australia's Lord Howe Island are so full of plastic their bellies make an audible crunching sound when scientists touch them. Source: Dr Jennifer Lavers/Adrift Lab The scientists believe most plastic is ingested due to parents accidentally feeding it to their chicks, instead of the fish and squid that make up their usual diet. Plastic may smell good to birds because of the algae that can coat it, said Matthew Savoca, a marine ecologist at the California Marine Sanctuary Foundation and Stanford University. 'Other times, birds may eat something that has already eaten plastic,' he told CNN. Shearwaters are particularly vulnerable because, while some birds will regularly throw up what they cannot digest, shearwaters 'only tend to regurgitate when feeding their chicks. The structure of their gut also means that plastic items are retained for a long time,' said Bethany Clark, senior seabird science officer at the conservation group BirdLife International. Scientists are still trying to unpick the health impacts; many are largely invisible. The Adrift Lab scientists take blood samples and dissect the dead birds. This year, as soon as they opened up the shearwaters, it was obvious there were 'systemic issues,' de Jersey said. She found scarring on the birds' kidneys and hearts. Plastic can block birds' intestines or cause starvation, but there are also 'sub-lethal' effects, Lavers said. 'They don't kill the animal instantly, but they do cause it to have a shorter life span (and) lots of pain and suffering.' Big pieces of plastic can dig into the birds' stomachs, causing excessive amounts of scar tissue. Microplastics might pass through the birds but leave a trail of toxic chemicals. The Adrift Lab team have even found eating plastic can cause 'dementia-like' brain damage in shearwater chicks. Over the last decade, the team has seen a very consistent decline in the birds' body mass, wing length and other measures. Lavers used to consistently find chicks too heavy for her 1 kilogram scales (2.2 pounds), but now the very heaviest top out at about 800 grams (1.8 pounds). What's happening to the birds on Lord Howe Island is 'truly troubling,' said Kimberly Warner, senior scientist at Oceana, an ocean conservation organization. Global plastic pollution is only getting worse, especially as cheap, single-use plastics — the vast majority made from planet-heating fossil fuels — continue to flood the market. An estimated 33 billion pounds of plastic waste enter the oceans each year, roughly equivalent to two garbage trucks-full dumped in every minute, according to Oceana. It takes centuries to break down. Horrifying images of dead albatrosses with clusters of colorful plastic spilling from their bodies, turtles eating plastic bags and whales entangled in plastic fishing nets are testament to how this pollution is affecting marine life. 'It's a crisis, and it's rapidly worsening,' said Lavers, who is still reeling from what they found on Lord Howe Island this year. 'I don't have words. I don't know how to explain what it is that I'm seeing.'
