MARINE DEBRIS - Marine Pollution: What Everyone Needs to Know - page 50

Figure 3.2 Bird carcass with ingested plastic (photo from NOAA)
that 92.5% of the birds had ingested an average of 36.8 pieces,
or 0.385 g of plastic. Compared to earlier studies, this shows
an increase in plastic ingestion over the past 40 years. New
approaches allow the study of stomach contents in living birds
by giving them ipecac, so that they vomit. Almost half the
storm petrels sampled in Newfoundland had ingested plastic.
Many adult seabirds feed ingested plastic to their offspring, so
chicks likely have a higher plastic burden than their parents.
Tiny floating microplastic particles also resemble zooplank-
ton, so they can be eaten by filter feeders and enter the food
chain. Approximately 35% of filter-feeding fish studied near
the North Pacific Gyre had ingested plastic in their stomachs,
averaging 2.1 pieces per fish. Catfish studied in Brazilian estu-
aries had plastic in their stomachs; 18% of the individuals of
one catfish species and 33% of the individuals of the other
species. All developmental stages (juveniles, subadults, and
adults) were contaminated. Nylon fragments from fishery
activities were the major constituent. Plastic contamination