New research shows that ingesting plastic can cause organ dysfunction and other health problems in birds.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Over and over, in the world’s oceans, baby seabirds often mistake bits of trash for food. New research in the journal Science Advances shows that ingesting plastic can harm them in unseen ways. Here’s NPR’s Jonathan Lambert.
JONATHAN LAMBERT, BYLINE: The main way biologist Alix de Jersey tells how much plastic a baby seabird has eaten is by feeling its stomach.
ALIX DE JERSEY: When birds are really highly plastic impacted, we can actually feel the plastic rubbing beneath our fingers.
LAMBERT: But from the outside, such birds seem healthy. Much of what scientists know about how plastics harm birds comes from studying dead ones. But de Jersey, of…