Plastic in seas around NZ pose biggest to world's seabirds

Sunday, 1 July 2018

Plastic in New Zealand waters has the potential to cause more harm to seabirds than anywhere else in the world, say Forest and Bird.

Rubbish that ends up in New Zealand waters has the potential to cause more damage to seabird populations than anywhere else in the world.

Forest & Bird spokeswoman Karen Baird said New Zealand's unique number of seabirds meant the potential impact of plastic rubbish was heightened.

Birds can starve to death when their stomach becomes full with plastic, leaving no room for food. Conservation charity Sustainable Coastlines found this seabird corpse with a number of pieces of plastic inside it.

'Even though we don't have the most plastic pollution, we are unique in the world in having so many seabirds species in New Zealand. We also have the most threatened seabird species, many of which are found nowhere else in the world.'

Now, research presented to Parliament by Forest & Bird shows the risk of plastic to seabirds is worse around New Zealand than anywhere else in the world.

The Te Matau a Māui collected plastic from the ocean during its voyage from Napier to Wellington earlier this year.

A large number of seabird species around New Zealand's coastline means plastic in New Zealand waters has the potential to cause more harm to seabirds than anywhere else in the world, say Forest and Bird.

* A krill's-eye video of New Zealand seabirds

* Hundreds of dead and starving seabirds wash up on Tasman beaches**

Reuben Raihania Tipoki observed how seabirds were attracted to plastic objects in the sea on a recent voyage on an ocean-going waka.

The unfussy eating habits of many seabirds meant that animals looking for a feed of kaimoana were instead getting a belly full of plastic.

Both adults and chicks could starve to death because their stomachs became full of plastic leaving no room for food.

Dr Stephanie Borrelle, a conservation ecologist at Auckland University of Technology said there were 86 breeding species of seabird in New Zealand of which about a third were endemic.

New Zealand also had high proportion of procellariiformes - an order of seabirds that included albatrosses, shearwaters and petrels, that were particularly susceptible to eating plastic.

Plastic tended to float on the surface or hang at a shallow level where the birds fed.

Reuben Raihania Tipoki of Lake Ferry, South Wairarapa conducted research on a seafaring waka along the east coast of New Zealand earlier this year trawling for plastic and observed how seabirds were attracted to plastic in the sea.

'We certainly found that our concerns were validated through the research that we undertook. It is a big issue and we are contributing the problem.'

The ocean-going waka Te Matau a Māui sailed from Hawke's Bay down to the southern coast of the North Island and found that pollution was 15 times more prevalent in Wellington and Napier harbours than it was in the open ocean.

'Which clearly shows the issue is coming from us. If it's in your harbours and in your bays, it is coming from your land.'

New Zealand has 36 species of seabirds that only breed here - the country with the next highest endemic birds was Mexico with five.

Turtles have also shown to be at risk in our waters, with a third of turtles recovered either dead or sick from eating plastic, Baird said.