Findings from a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences detailed that about 90% of seabirds today have plastic in their bodies. There are 360,000 pieces of plastic for every square mile in most of the world’s oceans. The amount of plastic ingestion by seabirds has increased significantly in just the past few decades; 10% of seabirds were found to have plastic in their guts in the 1980s. Discovery News reports:
Chris Wilcox of CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Flagship and Imperial College London and colleagues Erik van Sebille and Britta Denise Hardesty conducted the research. They surveyed data on 186 species of seabirds, incorporating information on plastic pollution in the birds’ habitats, foraging strategies, body size and more. This was used to create a model predicting debris exposure for the birds.
The researchers next compiled studies of actual plastic ingestion by birds. The reports dated from 1962 to 2012. The statistical model and the other data show that if the same studies were conducted today, “the ingestion rate would reach 90 percent of individuals,” Wilcox and colleagues wrote.
The forecast is even bleaker for 35 years from now, if our habits not change.
“We predict plastics ingestion is increasing in seabirds, (and) will reach 99 percent of all species by 2050,” the authors wrote.
Humans are dumping so much plastic debris into the water that by 2050 nearly every single seabird species will have some of it in their gut, scientists predict.
In a study published Monday, researchers from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia and Imperial College London analyzed studies dating to the early 1960s and used oceanographic and ecological modeling to predict the risk of plastic ingestion to 186 seabird species globally.
They found that nearly 60 percent of all seabird species have plastic in their gut, and that figure will rise to 99 percent by 2050, based on current trends. The risk is greatest at the southern boundary of the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, a region thought to be relatively pristine, the researchers concluded.
