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Comment by andrew1 | Hacker News Reader

Anyone know why an albatross would feed this stuff to its chicks? I don't mean that in terms of comparing an albatross to a human (as in, I can tell that a bottle cap is probably not a good thing to eat) but comparing it to other animals - a cat or an eagle say - that come into contact with a lot of the same objects on land. Is it a question of intelligence (that albatrosses are just not very bright) or maybe desperation (if it looks like it might be food and you can't find anything else it's worth a try)?

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From the article: "[The parents] soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young."

In other words, the albatross fly over the water, and when they see small, colored things floating near the surface, they assume they're small fish or other edible things. Up until quite recently (on the scale of albatross evolution), this was a pretty safe assumption.

So, no, low intelligence and/or desperation aren't implicated; rather, it's a matter of habitat and how prey are identified.

That sounds like a decent explanation, but won't they sense that something is wrong when they touch these objects? I mean stuff like plastic caps are stiff and hard, while fish are not. May be the fact that they evolved to swallow their food instead of chewing it may make it harder for them to distinguish a fish from a plastic cap even when it's in their beak?

I wouldn't be surprised if the reason might not have something to do with the fact that the birds do not chew their food but rather swallow it whole.

It may also have something to do with the bird's gizzard: some species of birds regularly consume rocks to grind food in their gizzards. It's possible that the plastic items are substitutes for the rocks.

From the Wikipedia article, it sounds like the plastic is not the worst threat to the albatrosses, but it's certainly a graphic one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albatross#Threats_and_conservat...

it's a question of feeding behavior:

- cat or eagle specifically look and wait for prey - albatross and other marine birds and animals do look for prey as well, but they don't have the luxury of wait or the ability to choose what parts do they eat

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