Plastic-Free July just wrapped. That’s the annual campaign for individuals to reduce consumption when possible and switch to reusable materials when it’s not. With that momentum, they try to get those same individuals to push for policy change. It’s not individual responsibility versus corporate responsibility or policy — it’s both. Who doesn’t resent making personal changes while governments allow recklessness to persist? This is a case of people becoming more invested in an issue when they start making those small changes, and then demanding more accountability from those who can have a wider impact.
There are people among us, perhaps even reading this, who still choose to pretend that the destructive behaviors we all engage in on some level have either no impact, or impacts that strike somewhere else. The famous 2015 video/photo of the turtle with a straw stuck in its nose moved many people, but others could brush it off. That was in Costa Rica. Somewhere else.
The image that got through to me was one from 2009, though I read about it in a book before I went looking for the photograph online during the time when it was still fresh. I had long “known” to cut apart six-pack rings so that animals did not get stuck in them, but that did not feel like anything. I had not seen what it looked like and imagined this must have been rare, the whole bit of animals tangling with plastic. Most animals are smart enough to not stick themselves inside of plastic, I figured, from a young age when I heard about this; still, not wanting to take the risk, I dutifully took those steps to reduce harm. Later, I would stop buying drinks sold this way altogether.
Then, I saw the image of the dead albatross chick with plastic inside of it — plastic that it had been fed by a parent mistaking the fossil fuel product for food. This stuck with me, gnawed at me. It was not a single case of one not-so-bright bird killing its own offspring. More and more photos showed other albatross and seabirds meeting a similar fate. But, a person could look at that albatross and think “that’s a shame, but that was on the Midway Atoll. Who even knows where that is?!” It is easy to detach ourselves like that, to act as if our garbage would not wind up in the Pacific if we live all the way over here by the Atlantic.
In October 2017, Blue Planet II debuted; it would come to the U.S. a few months later. The documentary narrated by David Attenborough is credited with bringing attention to the issue of marine plastic pollution . . . but so was the turtle with the straw up its nose, and the plastic-filled albatross before that.
What do we need to know and to feel in order to change our behaviors?
We do not need to look to far off places.
Earlier this week, CT DEEP staff freed a red fox in North Haven. The fox had become entangled in a hard plastic, wrapped around her neck and a leg. DEEP commentary suggests that the plastic had been a food container that was not rinsed or disposed of properly.
In several locations in Connecticut, plastic keeps ending up in osprey nests. There are a few ways that everyone can easily know this. For those local to the area, it can mean taking a walk with binoculars. Even easier is by looking through the Connecticut Audubon’s “Osprey Nation” pages, including a map on which stewards’ observations were recorded. There are over 1000 osprey nests identified in the state, with most along the shoreline though plenty are inland, including several in Hartford. Not all of those are active nests or have stewards. Without devoting much effort, I found several reports on nest contamination from this season. One person removed rope and plastic from a nest by Indian River in Clinton back in May. Another noted that an old plastic bag was entwined in a nest elsewhere in Clinton. In that same town on/near Beach Park Road, someone reported in April, “it seems their preferred building materials are seaweed and plastic bags!” In Waterford, someone spied plastic garden netting and other plastic debris in a nest in May. At another Waterford nest, there were plastic bags seen in March. Last month in a marsh by the Hammonasset River in Madison, a white garbage bag with ties was seen in a nest.
Another way to learn how plastic impacts nature in our own backyard is by joining the osprey super fan group on Facebook. People post photos and videos of the various osprey nests in the state, mostly on platforms but sometimes in other locations. Most of the posts are screenshots, photos, and videos of two nests that the Menunkatuck Audubon Society has live cams set up for. This is where we can all watch, in real time, as pieces of plastic blow into the Clinton and Madison nests, or, are brought there by the ospreys themselves. Additionally, there is a Milford Point nest cam. It’s basically the law that if you live in Connecticut, you have to visit Hammonasset Beach State Park at least once, and that is where the Madison camera is located. To put it another way: you might not ever go to Costa Rica, but if you’re reading this, you’ve probably been to Hammonasset. You know what that sand feels like; you know how the air feels there. This is a real place to you.
Over a few days during July, I also was taking screenshots of the Clinton nest’s bird cam, located in the western part of the town. Having visited Clinton, this is also a real place to me.
It’s one thing to see litter on the beach or side of the road, but it’s another to see wildlife interacting with it.
I am trying to imagine a human parent being fine with plastic bags in their child’s bed. If we wouldn’t leave trash in the crib of a baby just a few months old, if we find this is unacceptable to us, then we should do more than shrug when another species winds up nesting in our waste. We should be willing to prevent this, even when that means having to alter our selfish lifestyles by reducing needless consumption.
The Audubon nest cam site explains to viewers that they might witness upsetting events unfold, and the policy is that humans generally “will let nature take its course and not intervene.”
The “let nature take its course” philosophy is one that, thankfully, people have the courage to bend on — especially when we consider how humans’ constant violation of others’ habitats means that we have already negatively intervened.
Last week, someone removed plastic from the Clinton nest after the juvenile osprey began messing with it. This was documented in the Facebook group, and it seems that the juvenile had gotten tangled in it. This is a screenshot of how the group described the situation:
Both parents continue to care for the juvenile, despite the human intervention. A few days ago, there was more human intervention when a juvenile that fell out of a nest in Branford was taken to rehab briefly. There was an attempt to return it where it belonged, but with two other chicks in what wasn’t a great nest to begin with, it seemed the bird was fated to have another fall. They tried to add it to the Madison nest, where an egg never hatched this season; the adult osprey at that site appeared to attack it. So, they moved the chick to the Clinton nest. The entire adoptive family there has given it a warm welcome — something that those who live nearby or watch the live cam can verify.
Being able to monitor with technology a few of the nests might improve the outcome for exactly a few of the osprey — at least when people manage to intervene in time. Those who would like to get involved with monitoring osprey nests can learn about that from Audubon. To learn more about the Global Plastics Treaty, and take action, look to Greenpeace.
