• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

RANT: Plastic string etc. (not nice pictures) (1 Viewer)

DanC.Licks

AKA Daniel Bradley
I spent a dreary, drizzly day on Helgoland this last summer taking pictures, mostly of the spectacularly beautiful Gannets. What wonderful flying machines they are! Pure delight to behold.
However.....all is not well on the cliffs. The birds love to collect this stuff for their nests,
3T277674_resize.jpg
and even fight over it.
3T277816_resize.jpg
The consequences can be seen all over.
3T277749_resize.jpg
3T277585r_resize.jpg
3T277419r_resize.jpg

You certainly can't blame the birds for wanting to collect this stuff, and I guess you can't blame the farmers and the fishermen for using it in the first place, and even if they were more careful, enough would get lost to be a problem. Also, the cliffs there are very dangerous, and it would be impossible to clean them every few years or so to at least get rid of some of it. The people who work there as guides, bird counters, etc are also upset by it, but they can't do anything either. Sad, but what to do?

End of rant.
 
I remember the sickening sight of a magnificent frigatebird which had got fish line stuck around its head and had died having been hung to death with the line attached to a tree.
 
Like this?
3T071030_resize.jpg
I know that the "sport fishermen", as they are called here, hate Cormorants, so they might see this as revenge. Still... I found it very sad to see this guy hanging high up in a tree next to a Danube tributary.
Sorry about these pictures, but there it is. I have seen much much worse, like the series a couple of years back of decayed Pelicans with their bellies stuffed with plastic crap.
 
For an accurate documentation of the consequences of fishing line in a seabird nest, have a look at http://oo.adu.org.za/content.php?id=57 --- we document a case in which a cormorant chick took at least 88 hours to die, between first being observed entangled and last being observed alive. This is a paper in the ejournal Ornithological Observations, http://oo.adu.org.za --- which now contains about 70 articles of observations on birds
 
Warning! This thread is more than 11 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top