!VAR HAGENDOORN

Bird Stomachs

A few weeks ago the weekend magazine of my newspaper ran a feature story about a photo series by photographer Chris Jordan, which made me feel ashamed of being a human being. In September 2009 he photographed the remains of albatross chicks on Midway Atoll, an island in the middle of the North Pacific. They are fed by their parents who collect everything that looks like food in the surrounding ocean. But much of what they find is trash: pieces of plastic, lighters, bottle caps and so on. Tens of thousands of chicks die every year from being fed on this diet.

I first heard about what has been dubbed the Great Pacific Garbage Patch some years ago in one of those BBC wildlife documentaries (I forgot which). I was stunned.

The problem is now getting more publicity, but not much is being done about it.

Links

A documentary about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Have a look at some of Chris Jordan's other work as well.