Penguins 'living on a plastic beach', Wellington clean-up crews say
Tuesday, 15 October 2019
Penguins are 'living on a plastic beach' in Wellington, disgusted beach cleaners say.
In Evans Bay there's more plastic than sand, and kororā (little blue penguins) trapped in plastic, swallowing plastic, and hoarding it is not uncommon, experts say.
Forest & Bird spokeswoman Karen Wiley said around Wellington she saw penguins wrapped in plastic with stomachs full of plastic pieces.
'It wraps around their flippers, their necks and their beaks, and it cuts of their circulation, so they come to shore exhausted.'
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Some had to be euthanised because the damage to their legs would be too great, she said.
'All of it is discarded stuff … left by humans either intentionally or unintentionally.'
Penguins also nest amongst plastic, and in 2017 were found making a home among discarded rubbish on the South Coast.
University of Auckland seabird ecology PHD candidate Spencer McIntyre, who studies the birds, regularly pulls plastic pieces, cutlery, and fishing equipment out of penguin burrows.
He once found an unopened package of sponges which the penguins had managed to carry back to their nest.
But Wiley said the real issue was almost invisible - plastic fragments broken down over many years.
Consumed plastic would move up the food chain, from small algae-eating species to large fish, she said.
'What we don't see causes just as much damage as what we do see,' she said.
'Penguins are not generally eating plastic on the surface … it's the breakdown of the plastic that causes the issue.'
Unfortunately for Wellington, tiny fragments of plastic, or 'nurdles' used by manufacturers, have plagued the coastline for about five years.
Petone Beach Clean Up coordinator Lorraine Shaab said the nurdles were proliferating at Evans Bay and, despite clean-up efforts, they kept appearing.
With about 11 nesting spots in Evans Bay, Shaab said she had fears for the birds' health.
Conservation minister Eugenie Sage said companies needed to ensure nurdles didn't get into the environment.
'They can do this by handling consignments carefully, ensuring they are properly packed at point of shipping and at the point of unloading; ensuring the work area is bunded so that nurdles do not escape into the environment and retrofitting storm water grates with screens to prevent any plastic pollution getting into waterways.'
WIley said Evans Bay was a dumping ground for rubbish swept in by harbour currents, making it one of the worst in Wellington.
Having beach clean-ups was just the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, she said.
Regional council spokesman Stephen Heath said the source of the nurdles had not been found and the council didn't actively monitor the beaches for them.
'We couldn't trace any significant discharges to a particular company. Nor, when we inspected these companies, did we discover poor practices that could be used to identify them as a possible cause.'
The nurdle problem could be 'historic', an accumulation over many years, he said.