Islands drowning in sea of plastic
THE remote paradise islands which inspired Charles Darwin are being swamped with plastic that is threatening endangered wildlife.
Once pristine beaches on the Galapagos Islands are now covered with fishing nets, broken buoys, rope and other dangerous litter.
At least 18 species have been recorded either entangled in plastic or having eaten it.
They include the endangered Galapagos sea lion, conservationists said yesterday.
Drifting
Details were contained in a Galapagos Conservation Trust report released hours after disturbing TV footage showed a seal on the islands playing with a plastic bottle.
The islands are a protected wildlife paradise in the Pacific Ocean, 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador.
Most of the plastic is being carried by ocean currents and is fresh evidence of the blight engulfing the world’s seas.
The volume of plastic drifting in the waters is not only changing wildlife’s behaviour threatening to kill it.
Hermit crabs have been seen using old plastic bottles as body armour instead of abandoned seashells.
Nests of Galapagos finches – which inspired Darwin’s theory of evolution – have been found with plastic fibre woven into the leaves and twigs.
At least one sea lion has been found with plastic tight round its neck, cutting into its flesh and almost certainly condemning it to a slow death.
The Galapagos are home to 1,300 species of animals which are found nowhere else on earth.
In 2007 Unesco named the islands a World Heritage Site in Danger.
GCT photos show beaches littered with plastic – broken buckets, bags, bottles, boxes and lifebelts.
Experts counted more than 150 items on a 25-yard stretch of beach which few humans ever visit. Some of the bottles have Asian writing but is also but they are thought to have been thrown from ships passing close to the islands rather than having drifted thousands of miles.
Issuing an appeal for funding, GCT chief executive Sharon Johnson said: “The Galapagos Islands are one of the most unique, scientifically important places on Earth.
“We are proud to be working with experts from the UK and local Galapagos agencies to tackle the issue of marine plastic pollution.
Pollution
“There is a real opportunity, and at a relatively small cost, to provide the world with an example of how we tackle plastic pollution in our oceans.
We need to act now in order to help protect some of the world’s rarest species in one of the world’s most iconic archipelagos before it is too late.
“Everything is funding.” in place, bar the