discarded trash may spell doom for a bird

Turtle, grown up

The vast majority of situations of birds and other creatures being trapped involves trash being where it shouldn’t be.

We’ve seen birds caught in discarded fishing line (sometimes with hooks present), creatures “collared” by discarded, plastic 6-pack binders, even animals ensnared in broken Styrofoam or plastic cups. Pictured is a sea turtle who probably was trapped in this metal ring when he was a juvenile. Birds have eaten 'packing peanuts', old chewing gum, lead pellets from shotguns and so on, leading to their death. I know I’m “preaching to the choir”, but let’s all be alert for these seemingly innocuous and lethal traps.

Cleaning up trash is more than a "make it pretty" effort, and is everyone's responsibility. It makes very little difference who put the trash there in the first place.

 

 

Mining “Tar Sands” is a very real danger to birds

    More than half of the migratory birds in North America are facing a very real threat to their survival when they flock to Canada’s huge Boreal Forest for the summer – as they’ve done for many centuries. The vast forest (where most of our wintertime birds are every summer) is being overrun by oil companies. The companies turn the forest into a treeless expanse of lifeless mud in their unchecked search for the tiny bit of oil that’s contained in the soil.

    Anywhere from 6 million to 166 million birds could be lost over the next few decades, as they suddenly are made homeless and face starvation.