A gull endangered by a careless smoker’s discarded lighter carried it away from a neglected section of the West Promenade. Marta Balla caught it in a photo.
The Roosevelt Island Daily News
Photos courtesy of Marta Balla
“I saw this bird trying to eat a lighter,” Balla wrote.
“I hated seeing this poor bird so desperate to get this lighter. I tried to get the lighter, but it didn’t let me.”
From bottle tops to pen lids, seabirds consume plastic discarded by thoughtless humans.
Often mistaking plastic objects floating in the sea for food, the adult birds pick them up and then feed them to their young, with disastrous consequences.
Is it so hard discarding used objects in appropriate containers instead of just dropping them in public spaces? Birds aren’t the only ones endangered.
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“I Can Ask”
Chair Fay Christian opened the Operations Advisory Committee on February 12th, reading out member names from a prepared sheet that omitted Melissa Wade. It didn’t feel intentional, but it struck me as odd precisely because it came from something prepared. Lydia Tang gently corrected her, noting that Wade was, in fact, a member of the committee. Wade met the moment with grace, or perhaps she simply wasn’t bothered by it.
