This pristine and remote remnant of an ancient volcano is also the nesting site of a far-ranging species of seabird that has become a signature casualty of the vast amounts of plastic waste entering the oceans.
A recent study by Australian researchers has provided alarming new evidence of the plastics burden on wildlife. It points to profound changes in Sable Shearwater chicks unwittingly fed plastic by their parents – from signs of failing organs to brain damage that could impair the ability to mate.
Every year, dead birds wash up on the beaches of Lord Howe Island, sometimes in their hundreds, with what researchers say are severe symptoms of swallowing large amounts of plastic – emaciation, poorly developed feathers and deformities.
For their study, the researchers turned their attention to Shearwater chicks that appeared outwardly healthy to understand what deeper changes could be occurring.
“These apparently healthy chicks are already compromised,” said Jack Rivers-Auty, an immune system expert at University of Tasmania’s medical school. “We’re now seeing that reflected in poorer survival outcomes and weight trajectories over time,” he told Radio Free Asia.
“By studying birds that seem outwardly well, we can more clearly assess the hidden impact of plastic on their long-term survival and physiology,” he said Lord Howe is close to the east Australian current that carries warm Coral Sea waters south. Relatively still ocean eddies that form off the current are places where floating plastics can accumulate into rafts of debris. Shearwaters likely mistake the objects for prey, especially squid, a main part of their diet – ingesting it themselves and also feeding it to their offspring.
The birds’ migration takes them over most of the Pacific Ocean, which Jennifer Provencher, a conservation biologist not involved in the study, said means they “have an incredible exposure to plastics for their entire lifecycle.”
