In addition to another road-killed opossum and two unidentified songbirds, we documented our second road-killed saltmarsh sparrow and our first road-killed great egret this week at our survey location in Fairfield County, Connecticut. Saltmarsh sparrows are listed as endangered by the IUCN, and are a species of special concern in Connecticut. Great egrets are not listed by the IUCN, but are listed as threatened by the State of Connecticut. We often see great egrets in abundance in this saltmarsh, but we were surprised to see one dead on the road. The egret must have flown up from the edge of the marsh and in front of a speeding vehicle. I've included photos of these birds at the very bottom of this post. WARNING: The egret photo is graphic, so please do not scroll past the saltmarsh sparrow photo if you are sensitive to this.
In addition to removing another bag of litter this week, we also processed two of the three bags of litter we've collected so far. To do this, we used an adapted version of the Ocean Conservancy's Cleanup Datasheet. Looking at the types of litter we've picked up, it's very clear that littering is driven largely by people who engage in unhealthy habits. A very large proportion of the litter we picked up was associated with alcohol, smoking, or fast food. During our 1-hour cleanup this week we picked up 84 cigarette butts, 6 plastic cigar tips, 10 smokeless tobacco packages, 11 beverage cans (mostly beer), and 11 mini plastic alcohol bottles. There was also plenty of fast food trash including bags, condiment packets, plastic cups, and straws. Coffee cups and plastic coffee cup lids were prevalent as well. These represent a few categories of litter that were tallied. In total, we collected 596 pieces of litter this week. This was over a distance of 83 meters (roughly 0.05 miles). We've now removed trash from 8.6% percent of the entire roadside here.
Please note that our crowdfunding campaign is ongoing and additional donations are needed so that we can continue and expand this work. Please visit our GoFundMe page for more information.
BE ADVISED: THE IMAGE BELOW IS GRAPHIC
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