On Monday, one of Assateague’s famed wild horses was seen struggling with a section of ribbon that had been attached to a latex balloon caught in its throat. National Park Service rangers attempted to intervene, but couldn’t get close to the struggling horse because the other horses in her band were so protective of her.
According to Assateague Island National Seashore Chief of Interpretation and Education Liz Davis, the horse was ultimately able to chomp through the ribbon and did not ingest the balloon although it is uncertain just how much of the ribbon she ingested. The incident illustrates the dangers of balloon releases and where they end up and ultimately impact wildlife.
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9 comments:
If your going to have this kind of $hit happening on the island, plus running over ponies. Just close it to tourist.
It's from balloon releases, which can carry for hundreds of miles. I do Beach cleanups locally and a huge percentage of the items removed are balloons.
Some people think it's ok to do this crap to make their little darling dumpling's party special while it kills wildlife that mistake it for food.
As Trump would say, "Sad!"
Any word what killed the pony on the osv Friday night into Saturday morning??
We witnessed multiple rangers and wildlife plover counters racing down the osv early saturday.
Followed by a huge loader at a snail's pace.. a few hours later the loader was headed back north with a dead pony in its bucket.
That's all we saw but was wondering if it was a natural found death or another "accident".
8:23
Broken leg. They said she was fighting with another horse and broke it. Someone witness it happen and alerted the rangers.
Sad...
I thought maybe the preditorial killer plovers may have attacked the horse..
Those birds are very mean and will kill anyone or anything that approaches its nest that why the NPS keeps everyone away from them once they hatch...
That's the last time i ever release a balloon into the air.
Thanks for alerting the public of unforeseen dangers of such a benign act.
Working on the water I expected to find quite a bit of trash in fishing nets but well over 50% of the garbage that we would find was balloons. It's a HUGE problem. If any scientist ever invented a biodegradable balloon they would make a fortune
The horse didn't eat the balloon. And the last time I checked, ribbon is made out of paper. Damn! Are we going to ban paper next?
Ribbons tied to balloons are made from polypropylene which can take anywhere from 20 - 30 years to breakdown
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