Introduction

This image database is intended for the analysis of physical and colorimetric properties of plastic litter consumed by fledgling seabirds, but we hope that these images will also serve to highlight the seriousness of the threat to marine wildlife posed by plastic pollution, with some fledglings having ingested more than 200 pieces of plastic.

This database was made available as part of the publication of a paper describing the methodology we developed for quantitative photography of plastic pollution, in the hope that it will improve the robustness and accuracy with which plastic pollution is measured in terms of size, shape, and colour of individual fragments. Details of the publication are as follows:

About the project

Each image represents the plastic (and pumice) removed from the digestive system of a single Flesh-footed shearwater (Ardenna carneipes) fledgling during fieldwork undertaken by Alexander L Bond and Jennifer L Lavers in 2021 and 2022, as part of a long-term project studying trends in plastic consumption and effects on this highly-impacted marine species. Plastics were removed from the proventriculus and the gizzard of each bird and stored separately for imaging. An X-Rite colour reference card is included in each image for the purposes of calibration and scaling.

Image Acquisition and Processing

The 2021 image set was acquired using a Canon EOS 4000D DSLR at the Natural History Museum in Tring, UK by Joseph Razzell Hollis. The 2022 image set was acquired using a Canon EOS 1500D DSLR at the University of Tasmania by Gabrielle Henderson. Both image sets were processed in Adobe LightRoom to remove lens distortion, and then colour-corrected using custom Python script written by Joseph Razzell Hollis. For a full description of methods and data analysis, see Razzell Hollis et al. (2023).

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the Tasmanian Aboriginal people as the traditional owners and first scientists of the land where this research was conducted. JRH was funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 101030480. This research was approved by the Charles Sturt University Animal Ethics Committee (A22382), New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage (SL100169), Lord Howe Island Board (LHIB 07/18), and the University of Tasmania Human Ethics Panel (H0028598).