Marine Debris Project Final Report 2014

debris ingested by turtles to the debris present in the marine environment (Schuyler et al. 2012, AppendixJ). The next publication was a global analysis of anthropogenic litter ingestion by marine turtles whichreviewed literature published since 1985 and asked whether the prevalence of litter ingestion has changedthrough time as well as which species are more likely to ingest debris and what times of debris are mostcommonly ingested (Schuyler et al. 2013, Appendix K). The third paper created a model sea turtle visualsystem and used it to analyse the colour, contrast and luminance of debris items ingested by turtles, askingwhether turtles ingest plastic opportunistically or because it resembles their prey (Schuyler et al. 2014,Appendix L).Another major focus for project staff in the final year was addressing the risk marine debris poses toseabirds. The at-sea ranges of one hundred and eighty-eight seabird species around the globe werecombined with modelled distributions of marine debris at the global scale to analyse the threat marinedebris poses to the world’s seabirds. These analyses have resulted in a number of journal papers andarticles (in process) which comprise additional sections of this report.In total, we have now engaged over 5,700 school aged kids and 160 teachers/corporate citizens in the“Scientist for a Day” and week-long intensive field expeditions. The media interest and communicationsoutreach of the project has far exceeded expectations. We estimate that we have reached at least 10% ofthe total population of Australia through television, print, radio and electronic media coverage of themarine debris research carried out by CSIRO.18 | Understanding the effects of marine debris on wildlife