Do you know that Albatross are the sexiest birds? They have wingtipped black eyeliner, dance and sing when they see their mate, and are found to sometimes have same sex pairing (Young, 2008). They are also the largest birds in the world with one species of Albatross having a wingspan of 11 ½ ft (Terrence, 2008). Some species breed in Hawaii and others go as far as the islands off Antarctica (I’d pick Hawaii for sure).
They are the coolest birds in the world, but they are facing a really uncool problem. About 17 of the 22 species are considered threatened under IUCN criteria(VanderWerf & Young, 2011). One of the problems facing the albatross is their ingestion of plastic in the ocean. albatrosses are like the vultures of the ocean (but not as ugly, sorry vultures), they eat dead fish and sea animals that float up to the surface (Young et al., 2009). What can be really confusing to them is when a floating piece of plastic looks like a fish. They ingest the pieces of plastic and then regurgitate it to their little chick. Each albatross pair (sometimes female-female pairs, yay!) have one chick and they seem to be really bonded to it, even tapping on the egg to communicate like how moms talk to their bellies when they are pregnant. The problem is that the sharp pieces of plastic that it’s fed to the chick can rip a hole in its soft stomach tissue. If the chick survives at an early age, it still may have problems later because when it gets the courage to fly off the island the plastic contents in it’s stomach weighs it down and it dies of starvation.
I’m sorry that the albatross story turned really sad, but we need to know what is happening to the albatross because they deserve to be on this planet just as much as us! Here’s how you can help the albatross. A recent science article came out that traced the plastic from the stomachs of dead albatrosses to common household items. Although not many of them were able to be traced, they found that a lot of the plastic that they could trace came from plastic of bottle tops, cigarette lighters, and fishing lines (Frances et al., 2014). So what can we do to help? First we can pick up trash (and post about it for @Tuesdays For Trash), use matches or refillable lighters, avoid plastic water bottles, and cut out single use plastic in your life, vote pro-environment, and educate others.
Works Cited
Frances N., Hyrenbach D., Fang J., and Jensen B., 2014. “Use of indicator chemicals to characterize the plastic fragments ingested by Laysan albatross.” Marine Pollution Bulletin 87.
Terence L., 2008. Albatrosses, Australian Natural History Series. Collingwood, Vic: CSIRO Publishing. Book.
VanderWerf, E.A., and Young L.C., 2011. “Estimating Survival and Life-Stage Transitions in the Laysan Albatross using Multistate Mark — Recapture Models.” The Auk 128 (4):726–736.
Young L.C., Zaun B.J., Vanderwerf E.A., 2008. “Successful same-sex pairing in Laysan albatross.” Biology Letters Animal Behaviour (4):323–325.
Young L.C., Vanderlip C., Duffy D.C., Afanasyev V., and Scott S.A., 2009. “Bringing Home the Trash: Do Colony-Based Differences in Foraging Distribution Lead to Increased Plastic Ingestion in Laysan Albatrosses?” PLOS ONE 4 (10):7623.
Image: Wells, Melanie. “Grey Headed Albatross and Chick.” ABC News, 2018, www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-14/albatross-and-chick/9654370?nw=0.
