Something Smells: Birds' Keen Sense of Smell Causes Plastic Ingestion

Researchers from the University of California, Davis have discovered that an olfactory cue catches the attention of the birds and convinces them that marine plastic is food. In a recently published study in the journal Science Advances, the reason behind ocean-faring birds ingesting large amounts of plastic has been revealed: marine plastic debris emits the scent of a sulfurous compound that some seabirds have relied upon for thousands of years to tell them where to find food.