These Seabirds Are So Full of Plastic They’re Starving to Death

Just off Australia's eastern coast lies Lord Howe Island, a pristine paradise of white-sand beaches, vibrant coral reefs, and towering mountains. But on this island oasis, an ecological crisis is unfolding.

The island’s iconic sable shearwaters are bursting with plastic. 

More than 75 percent of the island's sable shearwaters have plastic in their stomachs. When researchers pick up these birds, they hear hundreds of bottle caps, balloon clips, soy sauce packets, toothbrush heads, and plastic pellets (known as “nurdles”) rattling inside.  

“The birds are so completely full of plastic, from their esophagus all the way to their cloaca,” says Jennifer Lavers, a marine scientist with the Adrift Lab, a research cooperative focused on seabirds and marine plastic pollution. In some cases, the birds have so much waste inside that scientists can’t even get tubes down their throats. 

And when they open the birds, they often find their organs in the wrong places. 

“The heart has been shunted up high in the body; the liver is splayed off to the side,” she says. “Everything is just being squeezed to the absolute maximum to create more space for the plastics.”

While plastic pollution has long plagued seabirds, a recent study by Lavers and her colleagues found that the problem on Lord Howe Island has skyrocketed in recent years. The study, published last month in the journal Earth's Futures, examined plastic in sable shearwaters on Lord Howe Island over the past 15 years. It found that in 2023, the birds began swallowing more pieces and heavier loads of plastic, and haven't stopped. 

(These birds are keeping a record of humanity—one wrapper at a time)

For example, in 2023, researchers found a bird with 403 pieces of plastic in its body, the most they had ever seen. Since then, the record has been broken every year. In 2025, a new record was set at 894 pieces of plastic. 

“Numbers that used to shock and appall me and would send our team into a tailspin of sadness, they just roll out of your mouth now,” says Lavers. “You just write them in the spreadsheet as if they're nothing, because that's like the seventh bird you've had that morning alone with more than 30, 40, 50 grams of plastic. Globally, that is unheard of.”

This rapid uptick in the amount of plastic the birds consume, which researchers describe as a “pulse event,” is having tragic consequences for them. The researchers say they are starving to death because their bellies are so full of plastic there’s no room for food. To save these birds and others on remote islands such as Lord Howe, the researchers say, drastic measures are needed to stem the flow of plastic into the oceans.

Of all the places for plastic pollution to wreak havoc, Lord Howe Island seems the least likely. The UNESCO World Heritage-listed destination is seen as a leader in remote-island waste management, and tourism is strictly controlled to preserve the island’s native species and natural beauty. 

The increase in plastic consumption among Lord Howe Island’s avian residents isn't due to plastic on the island itself, but to the constant flow of plastic into our oceans, which scientists estimate exceeds 8 million metric tons a year. 

Sable shearwaters, sometimes called flesh-footed shearwaters, spend over 90 percent of their lives at sea. Out in the open ocean, food is scarce, so these birds have evolved to eat whatever they can find. “They’re the opposite of a picky eater,” Lavers says. “They're very ‘shove everything in the mouth and ask questions later.’” 

In a world where plastic has permeated nearly every inch of our oceans, this feeding strategy has resulted in birds bursting with pieces of tiling spacers, plastic straws, toothpicks, tampon applicators, and other trash.

Once a year, Sable shearwaters gather en masse on Lord Howe Island to breed and raise the next generation. For the past 15 years, scientists from the Adrift Lab have studied the birds during this gathering to assess their health and how much plastic they consume. The researchers perform necropsies on dead birds and perform lavage on living ones, which involves flushing a bird’s stomach with warm water via a feeding tube to induce vomiting. 

(Seabirds that eat plastic—and live—have major health problems)

Over the past few years, the percentage of birds on the island with plastic in their stomach hasn’t changed much. What has changed is how much plastic each bird is lugging around. 

The data “went from being a gradual increase to a hockey stick,” Lavers says. “The amount of plastic we're finding in the birds, both by count, by number, and by mass, and the quantities of plastic that we're getting in the birds now are just almost unfathomable. You can't really come up with words to describe the situation.”

Although these birds are far from the only species affected by plastic pollution, their anything-goes approach to eating makes them especially vulnerable. Climate change is also exacerbating the problem. Rising ocean temperatures are driving the fish and squid shearwaters rely on into deeper waters, making them harder for the birds to catch. What’s more, extreme weather events like flooding can push plastic into the marine environment, and climate change is making such events increasingly common. 

The combination of climate change and plastic pollution has hit these birds hard, says Stephanie Borrelle, a marine biologist with BirdLife International who was not involved in the study. "It's just absolutely devastating. I don't know how Dr. Lavers does the work she does.”

Globally, sable shearwaters are listed as “Near Threatened” by BirdLife International and the IUCN Red List. However, even though the birds are not in imminent danger of extinction, Lavers says the situation on Lord Howe Island should still raise alarm bells among scientists and conservationists. 

“I don't know how much more sable shearwaters can tell us about the levels of plastics in the ocean and the rate at which it's changing, and the fact that current policy levers that we're pulling are totally inadequate,” says Lavers. “We need to help developing nations to improve their waste management. It's not enough for the Western world to do well. We need to all do well together.” 

Borrelle agrees. "In wealthy countries, there is the ability to be able to avoid plastics. In other countries where income is much lower, people can't avoid some of these single-use plastics because those companies go in there and intentionally sell them, because that's how they make their profit."

(Nearly Every Seabird on Earth Is Eating Plastic)

Lavers and Borrelle both say nations need to act together to reduce plastic production and consumption and keep it from entering ecosystems.  

“I think the solution to this is a bold, brave, legally binding, enforceable, global plastics treaty. That is the only path forward,” says Lavers. “I think the birds are doing everything they can to tell us that something is deeply wrong. I think the onus is on us as a society to respond to that.”