

Photos of Bird Stomachs - mhb
http://chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php?id=11

======
rmorrison
It seems a shame to me that nowadays "protecting the environment" is virtually
synonymous with "curbing CO2 emissions", which means that serious issues like
ocean pollution get very little attention.

~~~
dbz
We have serious problems to fix: like the pile of garbage the size of Texas
that is sitting in the middle of our ocean.

I couldn't find a good article, and I am petty sure the wiki-has some
incorrect data displayed, but I'll leave it to the curious to research =p

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch>

~~~
amock
If you read that article it says that the patch being the size of Texas is
conjecture by the media.

~~~
aerique
Don't worry, just wait a couple of years and it'll be the size of Texas.

------
andrew1
Anyone know why an albatross would feed this stuff to its chicks? I don't mean
that in terms of comparing an albatross to a human (as in, I can tell that a
bottle cap is probably not a good thing to eat) but comparing it to other
animals - a cat or an eagle say - that come into contact with a lot of the
same objects on land. Is it a question of intelligence (that albatrosses are
just not very bright) or maybe desperation (if it looks like it might be food
and you can't find anything else it's worth a try)?

~~~
darshan
From the article: "[The parents] soar out over the vast polluted ocean
collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young."

In other words, the albatross fly over the water, and when they see small,
colored things floating near the surface, they assume they're small fish or
other edible things. Up until quite recently (on the scale of albatross
evolution), this was a pretty safe assumption.

So, no, low intelligence and/or desperation aren't implicated; rather, it's a
matter of habitat and how prey are identified.

~~~
nebula
That sounds like a decent explanation, but won't they sense that something is
wrong when they touch these objects? I mean stuff like plastic caps are stiff
and hard, while fish are not. May be the fact that they evolved to swallow
their food instead of chewing it may make it harder for them to distinguish a
fish from a plastic cap even when it's in their beak?

------
whyenot
I saw the remains myself when I visited Midway a few years ago. It's very
shocking, especially the large number of disposable lighters... where do they
all come from? Laysan Albatross chicks on Midway are also dying because those
in nests near buildings eat the flaking paint and end up with lead poisoning.

Thankfully, things are actually improving. Laysan numbers have increased in
recent censuses and the species appears to be on the rebound. Thanks maybe in
part to President Bush including Midway and several other atolls used by
albatross in the National Marine Monument that he created.

During the breeding season every flat surface is covered with birds. It's one
of the most amazing things I have ever seen.

------
ximeng
His other photos are good too.

For example:

<http://chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php?id=9>

~~~
elpuri
Some pieces of the Running the Numbers series are currently on display in the
Museum of Science in Boston (which is otherwise a joke except the probability
machine in the math room which is really cool :)).

------
browngeek
Related videos from TED talks:

\- Capt. Charles Moore on the seas of plastic
([http://www.ted.com/talks/capt_charles_moore_on_the_seas_of_p...](http://www.ted.com/talks/capt_charles_moore_on_the_seas_of_plastic.html))

\- Chris Jordan pictures some shocking stats
([http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_jordan_pictures_some_shocking...](http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_jordan_pictures_some_shocking_stats.html))

------
noisedom
Wow, this drawing makes a little more sense now.

<http://www.mattfurie.com/032009big.php?id=03>

------
aresant
They should post these at every park / beach / national forest parking lot in
place of the current "Please don't litter" signs.

~~~
fuzzmeister
On a related note, my school (Washington University in St. Louis) has recently
changed the labels on all trash cans from "Trash" to "Landfill." It's amazing
how much that little switch makes you think carefully about everything you're
throwing away. If you can get people to truly understand the consequences of
what they're doing, the majority of them will change their ways.

~~~
anamax
> On a related note, my school (Washington University in St. Louis) has
> recently changed the labels on all trash cans from "Trash" to "Landfill."
> It's amazing how much that little switch makes you think carefully about
> everything you're throwing away.

And what do people do differently?

BTW - the above seems to assume that the US has a landfill shortage. It does,
but only by choice.

The US tries to recycle some things that don't make economic sense to recycle
today. It would be better to simply collect and store these things until it
does make sense to reclaim them. Landfills are ideally suited to this purpose.

Yes, it's dumb to recycle when it doesn't make economic sense. Subsidies are
waste. You'd think that folks who claim to care about waste would understand
that and actually walk their talk.

What am I thinking? People do things because of how it makes them feel.

~~~
fuzzmeister
This change was accompanied by a switch to single-stream recycling - that is,
all recyclable materials can be deposited in one bin and sorted later. From
what I've seen, this change has significantly increased recycling.

Could you give some examples of goods that don't make sense to recycle
currently? I certainly believe that could be true, I just haven't read
anything solid about it.

~~~
anamax
> This change was accompanied by a switch to single-stream recycling - that
> is, all recyclable materials can be deposited in one bin and sorted later.
> From what I've seen, this change has significantly increased recycling.

If the two changes (signage and single bin) happened at the same time, why the
claim that signage was significant (and the omission of the single bin
omission)?

> Could you give some examples of goods that don't make sense to recycle
> currently?

Sorry - I stopped tracking these things when I figured out that folks didn't
care about the economics. I'm reasonably sure that they still exist because
people are still people.

------
10ren
This is horrific, unbelievable.

I'll probably be downvoted for this, but I can't help but think that precisely
because it's killing them, it exerts an enormous selection pressure on
albatrosses. Nature is also cruel.

~~~
noonespecial
On the other hand, you might consider that nature is _cleaning_ the garbage
patch.

We've given up on being able to clean the garbage patch saying its impractical
to go out there and fish such widely dispersed trash from the ocean. By this,
of course, we mean "too expensive".

Nature has dispatched the cleaning crew to do it for us at an almost
unimaginable cost. The albatross seems an almost perfect instrument for flying
out there, spotting, and picking up exactly as much trash as it can carry and
then returning it to land.

Hopefully the selection pressure you speak of will yield a method of
collection that doesn't cost a whole bird for each load.

------
mbenjaminsmith
Does anyone know if other animals do this? Is that the presence of garbage
combined with the birds' inability to taste plastic as well as their inability
to regurgitate? That seems like an extreme environmental 'mismatch'. Sad.

------
davidmurphy
This is exceptionally powerful. I will now be aware of and care about this
issue for the rest of my life. Thanks for sharing.

------
kingsley_20
I'd be interested in understanding what the ethical issue at hand actually is.
Is it: a) the unintentional destruction of life b) the possible reduction of
biodiversity or c) the fact that animals are being killed that don't supply
human food chains?

~~~
s3graham
I'm not sure what you mean by "ethical", but I'll go for "d) All of the above"
as being unfortunate from my perspective.

~~~
kingsley_20
What are people so shocked and distraught about? Most of us contribute to the
destruction of life by eating meat and to the reduction of biodiversity by
occupying many environmental niches that would have otherwise harbored other
species. Frankly, c is not an ethical issue for me, as death is an essential
part of life, and it always contributes to some food chain.

I'm not able to make the connection between some dead birds that happen to
have eaten a human contaminant and all the outrage/shock etc in this
discussion. So I'm hoping that someone will connect it for me.

~~~
lhuang
Really? You have no idea why people are outraged?

Maybe it has something to do with the pictures.

What you cant see you ignore...

------
frou_dh
Fuckin' bottle caps, man

~~~
metamemetics
for real, reusable bottles are great. Though I suppose there is some debate
over bisphenol A in nalgene bottles and it's just one more thing to carry
around for some people.

~~~
wooster
I carry a metal bottle, and NALGENE is now moving to stainless steel bottles.

It would've been great if we'd just skipped all the steps between canteens and
going back to metal bottles, though. That whole 80's-00's trend of making
products disposable to increase sales and profit margins was really a waste.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _That whole 80's-00's trend of making products disposable to increase sales
> and profit margins was really a waste._

You think that this isn't still going on? Electronics are still get more
disposable and designed to fall apart more quickly AFAICT.

~~~
wooster
Oh, yeah, it's still going on, but at least the tide of "in the future
everyone will use disposable cell phones and computers" articles has died down
a bit.

------
tomerico
In a way, these birds are cleaning our oceans...

------
maxklein
A bit of info for the curious:
<http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Auk/v098n04/p0839-p0841.pdf>

Scroll down to "Ingestion of Plastics by Laysan Albatross"

------
aaronbrethorst
To quote Fight Club: " _very_ modern art."

how depressing.

------
Rayzar
Truly disturbing, makes you wonder what other effects of pollution are out
there that we won't get to see until it's too late.

------
rjett
Hmmm... the first thing I thought of when I saw this post was "beware the ides
of march."

