– Some of the birds hang there by a bone, a wing or from the head. They splash a little, they also die.
– Others have been there for a long time. Nests have been built on generations of dead birds.
It is nature photographer Roger Brendhagen who describes some of what he observed when he arrived on the small island earlier this summer roundwhich is located at the far end of the sea gap in Herøy on Sunnmøre.
DEAD BIRDS: Some of the birds appeared to have been dead for a long time, others were recent deaths, according to Brendhagen. Photo: Roger Brendhagen
sea view
Nest of garbage
During the breeding season, from February to August, Runde houses more than 500,000 birds – among them puffins, gannets, grebes and cormorants, and every year Brendhagen travels to the island, to photograph the unique bird life there.
During the more than ten years he has visited the island, however, something has changed drastically.
round famous bird mountains, which is described as the most species-rich seabird site in Scandinavia, has almost changed colour. The gannets, which have and build their nests there, have with each passing year upgraded their nests with rubbish.
BAD: The sight that met nature photographer Roger Brendhagen when he arrived on the island of Runde earlier this summer is, according to him, “worse than ever”. Photo: Roger Brendhagen
sea view
– Never seen anything so bad
– Death traps
– The nests consist of netting, colorful nets, rope scraps and various plastics, says Brendehagen.
According to him, many of the nests have, as a result, become pure death traps for the species.
– When I was there this summer, dead birds fell down, which crashed into the sea just a few meters from the boat I was in. It almost rained dead birds, says the nature photographer.
– DEATH TRAPS: All the rubbish has turned the birds’ nests into pure death traps, says Brendhagen. Photo: Roger Brendhagen
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– Worse
Brendhagen estimates that around 90 per cent of the gannet nests at Runde are now made of rubbish.
– It just gets worse and worse. Now it’s worse than ever, he says, and says that he now dreads the sight that will meet him during the annual trip to Runde.
– I get upset when I see fresh birds hanging there, or birds that have been hanging there for several years.
Nevertheless, he will not stop documenting the development.
– As a nature photographer, it is my job to take the nice pictures, but also the ugly ones, because they show how bad things have become, he says.
NETTING: Brendhagen’s impression is that it is netting that kills the birds to the greatest extent. Photo: Roger Brendhagen
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– Impact
Brendhagen’s experience is that it is nets that kill the birds to the greatest extent.
– Ropes are not that dangerous, but nets are easy to get tangled in, for example when the birds have to land in their nests in headwinds or headwinds, he says.
He describes the rest of the island of Runde as tidy, and believes that volunteers and others have done a good job of cleaning up plastic in nature there.
– But that doesn’t help the gannets, because they get the building material for their nests from the sea, says the photographer.
He believes that the images from the bird’s nest can illustrate how much plastic and rubbish there is under the sea surface.
– We often hear that there is a lot of microplastic in the sea, but you can’t see it. These images make a much bigger impact. It hits people in the stomach, he believes.
NESTS AMONG DEAD: According to Brendhagen, some of the gannets have continued to build nests where there were already dead birds. Photo: Roger Brendhagen
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– Must stop
Brendhagen says that this is also the impression he is left with when he gives lectures.
– Some get so upset that they almost start to cry. They wonder what they can do to help.
– What do you answer then?
– That we must stop littering the sea.
He adds that he has also faced opposition when he has talked about how serious he thinks the situation is.
– The gannet in particular seems to be doing well as a species, but can we afford to lose any birds, somehow? Can we afford to throw away a percentage of a species because there is so much plastic in the ocean that we should just give up?
Brendehagen believes that the fishing industry is mainly to blame for the problems he highlights, and calls for stricter return arrangements for fishing farms.
– I think many professional fishermen give a little shit. And when we know that the fishing industry is responsible for 90 per cent of the plastic litter in the sea, there must also be stricter requirements for this industry not to litter the sea, and to use its own resources to clean it up, he believes.
DREAD: The nature photographer says that he now dreads the sight that will meet him during the annual trip to Runde. – I get upset when I see fresh birds hanging there, or birds that have been hanging there for several years, he says. Photo: Roger Brendhagen
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– No rubbish bin
Information manager Jan-Erik Indrestrand at the Norwegian Fishermen’s Association tells Dagbladet that they are well aware of the problems at Runde, and says that what you see there is something nobody wants.
– Who wants that? What is required to avoid this is an awareness from all of us that we should never throw rubbish into nature. This is how it should be everywhere in all parts of society, says Indrestrand.
He continues:
– We are very concerned about the realization that the sea is not a garbage dump, and that the fish we eat must be healthy and that everything is a cycle.
He says that the ocean currents hit our land, and both our own and other people’s waste comes ashore, for example at Runde.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEM: The seals on Runde build nests from rubbish they find in the sea. Photo: Roger Brendhagen
sea view
– Throughout the country, we have a long history of human activity, which is now coming up from the sea, but we have tried to take, and will take our responsibility for this. Among other things, for the fishermen, the Norwegian Fishermen’s Association has drawn up an action plan, where one must target the smallest fractions of plastic, and have an awareness that nothing ends up in the sea, he says, and adds that there will also be better arrangements for waste management at the ports .
That much of the rubbish in the sea can largely be linked to activity from the fishing industry and the seafood industry is indisputable, according to Indrestrand – but that a great deal of it is old sins and not current practice, according to him.
– The fact that dumping rubbish in the sea has been a practice before does not mean that it is the same today. On the contrary. Fishing vessels often deliver more waste than their own because we get old sins in the gear. We can still always improve, therefore as an industry we must work to ensure that it is in the backbone that waste does not end up at sea, believes Indrestrand, and says that the Norwegian Fishermen’s Association has taken the initiative for a new international ISO standard for handling waste on board fishing vessel, which will be completed this August.
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