On a pristine Australian island the birds are so full of plastic they crunch
www.abc.net.au
It's an exclusive tourist destination and one of the most pristine places on the planet. It's the last place you would expect to find birds with bellies so full of plastic that they crunch if you squeeze them.

Last month, her team Adrift Lab found a bird that broke the record: almost a fifth of its entire body weight was plastic.

“To witness it first-hand, it is incredibly visceral. There is now so much plastic inside the birds you can feel it on the outside of the animal when it is still alive. As you press on its belly … you hear the pieces grinding against each other."

Since Dr Lavers’s first visit in 2008, she has witnessed an increase from about three quarters of birds carrying about five to 10 pieces of plastic, to every single bird having 50 or more pieces.

  • BodyBySisyphus [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    15·
    2 days ago

    So the initial impact vaporized stuff in the immediate vicinity and blanketed much of the planet in ash, but shit may not have gotten real for the eastern hemisphere until the Deccan Traps kicked off, which researchers now think was a secondary result of the impact. Almost the entire Indian subcontinent got covered in basalt.

    It’s debated what’s fully responsible but the giant volcanic eruption probably didn’t help.