Killer in the nest: how young storks are being strangled by plastic

Researchers in Europe found everyday plastics, especially farmers' baler twine, being used by the birds as a building material and entangling their young. It is a problem that affects other species too, say experts in the US, UK and Argentina

On a late spring morning in the farmlands of southern Portugal, Dr Marta Acacio set her ladder against a tree and began to climb. Four metres up, she reached the giant white stork nest that was her goal. She knew from telescopic camera shots there was a healthy looking chick inside - and now she wanted to ring it.

But when Acacio, an ecologist from University of Montpellier in France, tried to scoop up the chick, it would not come away: it was tethered to the nest by a piece of plastic baler twine. She turned the chick over and recoiled: its belly was a mass of maggots.