894 pieces of plastic were found inside one seabird. The bigger warning came from what happened next, the finding has researchers deeply concerned about the ocean

A seabird chick on Australia’s Lord Howe Island was found with something that sounds almost impossible: 894 pieces of plastic inside its stomach. The plastic weighed 64.2 grams, more than 15% of the bird’s expected body weight. This is the most shocking discovery from a 15‑year study of sable shearwaters and it shows how fast plastic pollution builds up in the ocean. For more than ten years scientists thought they had seen the worst case of plastic pollution. They were mistaken. The study, “Abrupt recent increases in plastic ingestion by Sable Shearwaters (Ardenna carneipes),” was published in the journal Earth’s Future.

How much plastic are these birds eating

Scientists from the Adrift Lab have been studying plastic ingestion in young sable shearwaters on Lord Howe Island for 15 years. They wash out the birds’ stomachs and record what they find.


The earlier record came in 2011, when one bird had 276 pieces of plastic inside it. The material weighed 64.1 grams. That number remained the record for more than 10 years. Then things changed. Researchers found more than 400 plastic items in one shearwater fledgling back in 2023. And this record kept on being broken in the years to come.

The latest bird had 894 pieces. The researchers say the amount is equal to more than 15% of the bird’s expected body weight. Put another way, it would be like an 80-kilogram person carrying 12 kilograms of plastic.

Dr Alex Bond, Principal Curator of Birds at the Natural History Museum and a co-author of the study, said the researchers once believed the 276-piece finding represented the worst possible situation.

“In 2012, we found a sable shearwater with 276 pieces of plastic in it. We thought this was the worst-case scenario, as a fledgling of that size couldn’t survive eating any more.”

Why are the seabirds eating so much plastic

The birds are not voluntarily choosing plastic as food. Their parents pick up waste floating in the open ocean because they mistake it for something edible. They then bring it back to the island and feed it to their chicks, as per The Natural History Museum.

The researchers have also noticed changes in the kinds of plastic being found. Resin pellets, known as nurdles, and bottle caps are making up a larger share of the waste. The findings show the growing amount of plastic entering the ocean and why long-term research matters. A shorter study could easily have missed the sharp rise seen between 2023 and 2026. The researchers say the changing levels of pollution highlight the need for long-running studies and better digital sharing of data. Bond said the recent trend is deeply worrying.

“We were wrong. From 2023 to 2026, the record for the most plastic ingested by these birds has been broken year after year. The plastic crisis is only getting worse, but we’re acting nowhere near fast enough to try and tackle it.”

The researchers say measures such as tethering bottle caps to bottles could help reduce some plastic waste while talks on a Global Plastic Treaty continue.



But even a strong treaty would not make the problem disappear quickly. The supplied research notes that ocean plastic levels would continue rising until 2050 even if plastic production stopped today.