Seabirds are among the most severely impacted wildlife groups from marine plastic pollution, with plastic ingestion, entanglement, and nest contamination causing suffering and death across species.
Seabirds face plastic pollution impacts across their entire life cycle, from chicks fed plastic by well-intentioned parents to adults that die entangled in ghost gear. The welfare harm ranges from slow starvation through plastic blockage to traumatic drowning in net entanglement. Individual suffering is widespread and well-documented through necropsy studies. Effective interventions require both source reduction of plastic entering oceans and targeted removal of ghost gear from key seabird feeding areas. Consumer plastic reduction choices, while important, must be complemented by industrial-scale plastic production regulation.