I must say I had never heard of photographer Chris Jordan before this morning, but after viewing some of his work, I don't believe I'll ever forget these images. Powerful and gut wrenching, Chris travels around our coasts and produces images of what he sees as a "slow-motion apocalypse in progress."
Although I usually stay upbeat and positive about nature and our connection to it, these images affected me so much that I felt obligated to share them.
www.chrisjordan.com
Tom, wild wave and thank you for this link!
ReplyDeleteIt's been awhile. I'll have to stop by more often.
Cheers! JJ
I wonder why these poor birds consumed plastic. I mean why they id-ed all that stuff as edible?
ReplyDeleteThese photographs are much more powerful if you imagine that some of the bottlecaps and pill bottles are ones that you have personally thrown away. For some reason, when I see pictures of marine mammals maimed and killed by garbage, I always think of it as someone else's trash. But I throw away bottle caps all the time (while recycling the bottles). What if some of them were eaten by these albatrosses? It's a terrible thought.
ReplyDeleteThis is truly heart-rending. The colourful bits of rubbish look so grotesque inside the dead birds. My God. We need to stop this stuff from getting into our oceans.
ReplyDeleteJJ- It's good to hear from you. I stop by Nature Shows and Dreams- I know you have been busy.
ReplyDeleteAluaja- That is a good question. I'm just speculating here, but I'm guessing that they have evolved to recognize and eat anything that shows up on the waters of the open ocean. These birds don't have the brain power to recognize that these things are different from any other food item- a dead fish, etc. I liken them to my 8 month old son who tries to eat everything.
Rachel- Exactly. The things that are in these young birds are things that work their way through our hands almost every day.
Rashed- Agreed- And I do believe that cruise ships and other ocean going vessels simply dump there garbage at Sea, but I'll have to get confirmation of that.
Thanks everyone.
Tom
Unfortunately it's knowing things like this that defeat any chance of me tending toward being as upbeat & positive as you try to be. :(
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting this video, Tom. It says more than all the statistics we've been reading.
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