Balloons continue to entangle our marine life and beach goer Judith Conning is fed up.
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Last week she found a dead bird tangled in a mess of disintegrating balloons and ribbons used to tie them together.
It comes not long after a similar incident when a bunch washed up on a local beach to the anger of Keep Our Paradise Rubbish Free campaigner Tina Gogerly...read the full story here.
Judith Conning regularly walks along Diamond Beach, north of Forster, and has taken to carrying bags to pick up rubbish and even scissors to cut away tangled fishing lines and bunches of balloons.
At first she thought it was a bundle of seaweed but as she got closer the fishing line and rope became visible so she took out her scissors to start cutting it away to put in her bag and dispose of in the rubbish bin later.
“It wasn’t until I started cutting it all away that I saw the balloons and all the ties. It took my husband and I five minutes to unwrap it all.
There must have been quite a party around here recently as others were picking up balloons too.”
“I’ve been to a funeral where they’ve done it, and I sat there in horror because for a long time I’ve known about the danger of these things.”
- Judith Conning on the release of balloons at a service.
She is part of a larger group of walkers who pick up rubbish as part of their morning ritual.
“There’s a core group of 12 or more of us and we go down regularly to walk our dogs and we pick up rubbish. We don’t plan it, it’s just happened like that.”
Tangaroa Blue Foundation is an Australian-wide not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the removal and prevention of marine debris which it says is one of the major environmental issues worldwide.
In relation to balloons, they are in the top three most harmful pollutants threatening marine wildlife for both entanglement and ingestion.
The impact balloon litter can have has been well documented in the Flesh-footed Shearwaters on the remote Lord Howe Island and Judith believes it was a shearwater she found at Diamond Beach.
During annual surveys of the colony, balloons and their attachments are one of the most readily identifiable items found inside the stomachs of both adults and chicks. Chicks are mistakenly fed the litter by their parents and can be left too weak to leave the nest.
Judith urges people to stop releasing balloons as a form of tribute or celebration and to consider other options like blowing bubbles or planting a tree.
“I’ve been to a funeral where they’ve done it, and I sat there in horror because for a long time I’ve known about the danger of these things.”
She felt it wasn’t appropriate to say anything at the time and that education is the key.
“Often people do things and they have no idea of its consequence so education is a good start. If people then choose not to release balloons at their child’d first birthday party for example then that’s the best outcome.”