the clash | 185Patch may be not visible to passing mariners but its debris, especially
plastic particles, menaces birds. In the mid- 1990s a study of 251 dead or
injured Laysan Albatross chicks on Midway Island, at the north- western
end of the Hawaiian chain, discovered, depressingly, that all but six con-
tained plastic debris.^6 Since then, the plight of dead albatross chicks
with rotting bellies chock- full of plastic waste has been widely adver-
tised.^7 “And till my ghastly tale is told, this heart within me burns” wrote
Samuel Taylor Coleridge in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.^8 Have the
two centuries since Coleridge’s writing witnessed a deterioration in our
management of the seas’ creatures? If human activity can wreak such
distress on innocent albatross chicks so distant from urban sprawls, has
humanity abrogated responsibility for stewardship of the planet?
I hope the answer to those questions is no. That said, the solution of
the problems of marine pollution will rarely entail improved knowledge
of the habits of seabirds derived from modern technology. Rather, the
solutions will involve stronger legislation and more rigorous enforce-
ment. However, other aspects of seabird conservation certainly will
benefit from improved knowledge.
In the effort to mitigate climate change, sustainable or green energy
generation will be critical. At sea, this will undoubtedly involve off-
shore wind farms. Associated with farms are several threats to the envi-
ronment. There is the disruption associated with construction, espe-
cially if the turbine is mounted on piles, and not floating. There is the
question of whether the farm’s presence will deter and adversely affect
(or, less likely, attract) seabirds and indeed other animals in the longer
term. There may be no tidy answer to this question since GPS- tracking
of Lesser Black- backed Gulls has already hinted that the amount of use
birds make of wind- farm areas can vary from year to year and between
males and females.^9 However the divers (loons) have emerged as a group
of birds wary of offshore wind farms. Further, when the Nysted wind
farm was built in the Baltic off southern Denmark, the percentage of
flocks, mostly Common Eiders and geese migrating by day, entering the
wind farm area decreased by a factor of 4.5 when pre- construction was
compared to operation.^10
Finally, once within the perimeter of the wind farm, birds face a sig-
nificant possibility of impact. With the largest, 80 m blades of modern