Scourge of plastic reaches penguins in Antarctic haven

THEIR isolated island home was long believed to provide a haven from pollution.

But a study has found that plastics have made their way into the food chain of king penguins on one of the world’s most remote islands.

Experts from the University of St Andrews found that more than three quarters of the birds surveyed on South Georgia in the South Atlantic had plastic microfibres in their stomachs.

Less than the length of a baby’s fingernail, and often coated in toxic chemicals, they can lodge in an animal’s stomach.

As as they break down into even smaller nano-particles, they wreak havoc throughout the body.

Until recently it was believed the Antarctic was a haven from the menace – protected by a circumpolar current constantly flowing east around the continent.

The island of South Georgia is home to one of the world’s largest colonies of king penguins, with around 100,000 pairs, and was praised by Sir David Attenborough as ‘one of the most extraordinary’ places on Earth.

Standing over 3ft tall, the birds raise one chick every two years and have striking orange-gold feathers on their necks.

Lead researcher Camille Le Guen, who spent more than two months on the island as part of the study, said: ‘The seas are suffering from climate change and over fishing – plastic pollution is an added and growing threat.

‘The Southern Ocean was supposed to be the cleanest ocean in the world but maybe this is not such an isolated place after all.

‘The Antarctic circumpolar current is like a semi-barrier for microfibres, but once the microfibres manage to get in, they are stuck because of that current and then they will accumulate.

‘We found that 77 per cent of birds had microfibres in their diet, including birds with chicks and even non-breeding birds. Whether they are natural, like cotton and wool, or synthetic, like polyester, microfibres from clothes accumulate chemicals – like flame retardants and the dyes for the colour.

‘If they are ingested in the stomach, they may degrade and end up inside the body, and then they cause problems.’

The Scottish Daily Mail has been at the forefront of trying to combat the death of sea creatures with its Turn the Tide on Plastic campaign, which led to the scrapping of free plastic shopping bags.

Global plastic production had risen to 342million tons in 2017.

Miss Le Guen warned: ‘The real concern is nano plastics, resulting from the degradation of the microplastic fibres. Nanoplastic can get into the organs, the brain, the different tissues and alter their functioning.’