Stand down, Hercule Poirot: The mystery of the uninhabited island littered with thousands of elastic bands has been solved.
A small, rocky outpost off the coast of Cornwall, Mullion Island provides sanctuary for nesting seabirds.
But despite public access to the isolated site (which is only about 1 mile in circumference) being forbidden, the effects of human influence are increasingly evident.
Rangers were initially stumped by the growing number of colored loops strewn about the remote island.
“We first noticed the bands on a monitoring visit during the breeding season and were puzzled why there were so many and how they’d got there,” Mark Granthan, of the West Cornwall Ringing Group that discovered the bands, said in a statement.
During a special autumn trip to clear the litter, a team collected “thousands of bands and handfuls of fishing waste” within an hour.
Turns out, great black-backed and herring gulls have simply been confusing the rubber bands for food, then depositing them at roosting sites across the isle.
Experts from the National Trust—a UK charity dedicated to environmental and heritage conservation—found an assortment of tan, yellow, and green bands among regurgitated pellets.
The elastic bands are believed to have originated in nearby horticultural fields, where they are used to tie bunches of cut flowers.
Small bundles of green fishing net and twine, likely mistaken for tasty morsels floating on the surface of the sea, were also uncovered among undigested food.
“Ingested plastic and rubber is another factor in a long list of challenges which our gulls and other seabirds must contend with just to survive,” National Trust area ranger Rachel Holder said.
One gull reportedly died after being caught in a 4-inch fishing hook.
“Despite being noisy and boisterous and seemingly common, gulls are on the decline,” Holder continued. “They’re struggling with changes to fish populations and disturbance to nesting sites—and eating elastic bands and fishing waste does nothing to ease their plight.”
Numbers of great black-backed gulls—the largest of its kind in the world—have fallen by 30 percent. The herring gull, notorious for pinching food from unassuming tourists, now appears on the UK Red List of Birds of Conservation Concern.
The Trust is calling on businesses and consumers to examine how they dispose of plastic, latex, and other materials that could harm wildlife.
“Single-use materials are having an alarming impact on our country’s most remote places,” according to Lizzy Carlyle, head of environmental practices at the National Trust. “It’s up to all of us to take responsibility for how we use and dispose of these items—whether we’re producers or consumers.”
The National Trust and West Cornwall Ringing Group are working together to monitor populations of seabirds on the islands and, where possible, remove debris from nesting sites.
“Places like Mullion Island should be sanctuaries for our seabirds, so it’s distressing to see them become victims of human activity,” Holder said.
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