rings, plastic bread and sandwich bags and 

 Styrofoam cups. 



Commercial fishermen lose or discard tons 

 of plastic fishing gear every year. 



Kathryn O'Hara, marine biologist with the 

 Center for Environmental Education, says 

 hundreds of thousands of tons of plastic 

 debris end up in coastal waters each year. 



No one knows for sure how many animals 

 plastics kill, but biologists say that for every 

 animal they observe entangled in a net or 

 strangled with monofilament, there are many 

 more that they don't see. 



James Coe, program manager of the 

 National Marine Fisheries Service's marine 

 entanglement research program, has been 

 studying the northern fur seal. He estimates 

 that up to 30,000 fur seals die each year after 

 they become entangled in derelict fishing 

 nets and plastic strapping bands. 



Each year researchers assess the fur seal 

 population on Alaska's Pribilof Islands. 

 Among the healthy seals on the beaches are 

 those that have encountered marine debris. 



"The damage (to the seals) ranges from 

 something wrapped around their neck to 

 some that are hog-tied," Coe says. "Their 

 flesh may be lacerated, and they have ugly, 

 festering wounds." 



Although the result may not be immediate 

 death, the entangled seals may eventually die 

 of infection, exhaustion or starvation. It may 

 take a female seal twice as long to forage for 

 food for her young pups. They also may 

 eventually die. 



Coe believes the seals become entangled 

 sometime during the nine months they spend 

 offshore. 



During that time, nature plays a cruel trick 

 on the seals. 



The same currents that concentrate food in 

 an area of the sea also sweep floating debris 

 there. When the seals gather, they get more 

 than they bargained for, Coe says. 



Sea turtles encounter a similar problem. 

 "They eat whatever is in the area where their 

 food is supposed to be," Coe says. That 

 includes plastic bags. 



On Long Island, N.Y., a researcher 

 reported 11 dead leatherback turtles washed 

 ashore during a two-week period. All had 

 plastic bags blocking their stomach openings. 



At the University of Florida Veterinarian 

 School, Paul Cardeilhac dissects about two 

 dolphins each year that have died after 

 ingesting plastic bags. 



Sometimes the mammals regurgitate the 

 bags. Most often, the plastic plugs up the 

 dolphin's digestive tract and it dies, 

 Cardeilhac says. 



If the plastic dumped at sea doesn't end up 

 in the stomachs of fish or twisted around the 

 neck of a bird, you'll likely find it washed up 

 on the nation's beaches. 



In 1986 the non-profit Center for Environ- 

 mental Education sponsored a beach clean- 

 up in Texas. About 3,000 volunteers picked 

 up trash on a 122-mile stretch of beach. 



O'Hara estimates the volunteers picked up 

 124 tons of trash. In a survey of just half the 

 participants, she found they picked up 15,580 

 plastic bags, 10,350 six-pack rings, 5,308 plas- 

 tic milk jugs and 2,432 plastic egg cartons. 



In a survey of litter on North Carolina's 

 Shackleford Banks, a National Marine Fisher- 

 ies Service researcher found an estimated 

 11,000 plastic bags, 2,400 six-pack rings, 1,100 

 plastic packing straps, 1,100 Styrofoam cups 

 and 1,350 pieces of monofilament line. 



And our state is not without a horror tale or 

 two. 



Parnell has seen gulls with six-pack rings 

 around their heads. 



He's concerned for those entangled birds, 

 but he also worries about the entire popula- 

 tion. When a nesting bird is entangled, it's 

 possible that its nest failed, he says. 



But amid the stories of mangled wildlife, 

 there is an occasional happy ending. 



Consider fisherman E.M. Livengood's rela- 

 tionship with a sea gull he's named Georgette. 



He and the bird met two years ago on a 

 pier in Nags Head. Georgette's head was pok- 

 ing through the hole of a six-pack ring. One 

 of her legs was stuck in another hole. She 

 couldn't fly, and she could barely walk. 



For several days, Livengood fed the gull 

 pieces of shrimp. Finally he caught her in a 

 net and clipped the ring off her. 



Now Livengood and Georgette meet regu- 

 larly on the pier. He takes her pieces of trout 

 from his freezer, and she thanks him by 

 perching on his head. 



