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"Over the past several years, the temperature of the Earth’s oceans have been spiking high enough to trigger numerous die-offs of marine species, killing millions of corals, fish, mammals, birds and plants. Those mass die-offs also have sent a wave of emotional trauma washing over some researchers watching their life’s work vanish before their eyes."
Heat waves recently extended across nearly 30 percent of the world’s oceans, an expanse equivalent to the surface area of North America, Asia, Europe and Africa.
The birds are short-tailed shearwaters which undertake a marathon migration each year from Alaska, down the California coast and across the Pacific to Victoria and Tasmania.
Flesh-footed shearwater seabirds ingest plastic that leads to scarring of their internal organs, kidney and liver disease, all of which results in them starving and becoming more vulnerable to pathogens.
Researchers coined the term “plasticosis” to describe stomach damage related to ingesting trash.