Dr Alex BondNew paper with @[email protected] in ES&T: We know Sable Shearwaters show measurable harm from plastic ingestion but this isn't just a story about one species. 🧵 1/3
📄 doi.org/10.1021/acs....
Their vulnerable biology is shared across hundreds of seabird species. We don't see harm from plastics elsewhere often because the ocean hides it — carcasses last ~8 days, <5% wash ashore. Or we just haven't looked.
Absence of evidence ≠evidence of absence. 2/3
Sable Shearwaters aren't an outlier—they're a preview. Chick maximum plastic loads rose from ~200 pieces in 2011 to ~900 in 2025. And the plastics treaty has stalled.
More: adriftlab.org/news/the-can... 3/3
#ornithology #PlasticPollution #WildOz #seabirds
