Teaser film for ‘Toxic Feathers’ released

Feathers are really beautiful. They are also a suitable tissue to study the effects of chemical pollution in wildlife. Filmmaker Maeve Brennan shows how feathers (and other wildlife tissues) are used in ecotoxicological research and explores the unseen problems chemicals cause for birds of prey and other wildlife in Europe in her documentary ‘Toxic Feathers’. The teaser film for this documentary is now available to watch.

Teaser film for ‘Toxic Feathers’ © Maeve Brennan

Chemical pollution is one of the biggest causes of biodiversity loss. But for the general public, it can be difficult to imagine how chemicals cause the disappearance of species or changes in wildlife abundance. Chemicals can substantially alter diversity at the bottom of food webs, such as insects and plants. And they can also accumulate in food chains and end up at high concentrations in top predators like birds of prey and predatory mammals. The resulting biodiversity loss is often gradual and difficult to notice – and we forget the richness of nature that previous generations enjoyed.

In ‘Toxic Feathers’, award-winning documentary filmmaker Maeve Brennan shows how research using feathers and other wildlife samples can help us better understand how chemicals move through food chains and raises awareness on the problems chemicals cause for wildlife.

In June 2026, Brennan and her director of photography Jamie Quantrill visited Naturalis Biodiversity Center and TU Delft in the Netherlands, together with Dr. Paola Movalli and TerraChem project director Guy Duke, to capture research and lab work.

You can get a first look at the documentary through this teaser film. Work on the full length documentary will continue. To see more of Maeve Brennan’s work please visit her website.

The Teaser was funded by TerraChem. We thank all those involved in the film.