The Killing Diet of the Midway Atoll Albatross

Midway
Message from the Gyre

These photographs of albatross chicks were made just a few weeks ago on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.

To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world's most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent.

~cj, October 2009

View pics here:
current work

 

that is really sad.
people are so stupid and irresponsible sometimes

 

well thats just aweful.. its only getting worse..

 

It will only get worse. You can walk the beaches of many unhabited islands in the Pacific and pic up plastic food packaging and other trash with labels in 20 or 30 different languages. It comes from everywhere, and winds up there.

Cheers,



Don