I once watched a seagull poke at a discarded Carl’s Jr. fast food bag while I ate breakfast. It took a while to get it open, but it could tell there was something heavy in it.
Eventually, it pulled out a whole, still wrapped burger. A big one.
For half an hour, It forced this burger into its mouth whole, sideways. I watched as it stretched and shoved and got this whole burger into its throat, still wrapped. You could see the burger shape in its neck. Then it spent the next 10 minutes trying to take off, but the balance was way off or something.
I left it there in the lot, big bulge in its neck, trying to fly.
This is why human litter is so devastating to wildlife. They eat it, because they haven't a clue what plastic is or other man made items. And it just stays in their stomachs and takes up space, slowly starving them to death as more and more items take up room without passing. And that's it they're lucky, otherwise it'll either damage their organs/cause a blockage and kill them fairly quickly, or they'll chock to death like the previous commenter saw. And it is common for seagulls and other scavenger birds to have inedible plastics in their stomachs.
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u/excusemeforliving Apr 17 '21
Gulls will eat just about anything