Wednesday, March 26, 2008

BBC Segment

It's been a very interesting week with the return of the broken racing sailboat, the beginning of the visitor's program, the supply ship coming in, and the BBC here enlightening the world about our plastic problem. They used a little clip of me picking up marine debris and saying a few things. I hope I won't be followed around by the Midway paparazzi now. Actually, I take more pictures than everyone else on island put together so I probably don't have to worry. This is the link to today's story:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_7310000/newsid_7314800/7314857.stm?bw=nb&mp=wm&asb=1&news=1&bbcws=1

And don't forget to read David's new internet story. His reports are a bit more colorful than mine, and also written much better. Most of the plastic we find is not so thought provoking. Lighters, toothbrushes, bottle caps, and broken bits of plastic make up the usual finds, but every now and then we find some toy or other item that really does make you wonder what it went through to get here. I'll get a picture tomorrow of a few of the more interesting items. Here's David's link again:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7312777.stm


I was taking a picture of these chicks in the marine debris when I heard a lot of squawking. There were two Great frigatebirds fighting over a fish.



The chaser ended up getting the fish from the chasee. Did I mention that Midway was a great place?

5 comments:

Shammickite said...

David Shukman's writings are very interesting, he obviously is fascinated with life on Midway. I'd love to come and help pick up plastic garbnage, how do I get there?
I've got lots of plastic garbage picking experience.... I commented on your blog about the huge amounts of plastic on the beach in Florida last year.
How can we save this world from plastic?
I have a brand new grandson.... will he ever be able to walk on a beach without having to step over dead birds and mounds of plastic waste?
"sigh"

RunnerBecky said...

Wow...reading your blogs sure makes me miss Midway!! Pete, you need to consider becoming a photographer as a sidejob when you get back to the mainland. Your shots are amazing!!

Anonymous said...

Hi Pete,
Great pics! I almost missed you in uniform in the video (no audio at work). Have a great B'day.
Vikram

Unknown said...

Hey Pete! I was excited to see Midway on the news last night. Which beach was all that rubbish collected from?

Pete Leary said...

That garbage was all on the north end of the east side of Eastern Island.
Right now the only ways to get out here are paying for the visitor program through the Oceanic Society or putting in for the 3 month volunteer slots which is listed on the USFWS webpage for Midway. It would be nice to have everyone who wanted to help come out here, but the island infrastructure and few number of planes really make it difficult.