They also analyzed the pellets regurgitated by the chicks. "We noticed that there was a lot more plastic in the ones from Kure Atoll than from Oahu," Young said.

The monitors showed that the Kure Atoll birds spend a lot more time over the Western Garbage Patch, a zone off Japan where ocean currents have trapped large amounts of garbage, than the Oahu birds spent over the corresponding Eastern Garbage Patch between Hawaii and California.

Although the Kure Atoll chicks regurgitated 10 times more plastic than the Oahu birds, the pellets had about the same amount of real food.

"The fact that they cough them up usually means the chicks are going to be OK," Young noted. "It is the ones they can't cough up that are the problem."

"It is surprising that a colony that is so near to a city of a million people had so much less plastic consumption than a colony that is literally the most remote atoll in the world," Young said. "It's not only that they were able to find (the garbage), but that they were bringing it back to the atoll."

"Nothing is immune from what we (humans) do at this point," she added.

"What is shocking to me is the quantities that they're finding in these albatross chicks," said Holly Gray of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation in Long Beach, Calif. "Those are substantial burdens for these small animals to be carrying,"

"The solution is simple: We need to halt the flow of plastics into the marine environment," she added. "It is the implementation of this halt that is the complicated part."

Related Links:

Jennifer Viegas' Blog: Born Animal

Discovery Earth Live: Midway Journey

WATCH: Midway Journey

Animal Planet