Ocean plastics continue to impact some Arctic seabirds more than others: study – Nunatsiaq News
23 July 2020
“We now have a baseline of what the trends of plastic ingestion are”
Although it’s understood that plastics are in the Arctic and that some birds are more at risk of ingesting them, less is known about how this has changed over time.
A new study published last month in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin sought to change that by examining four different species of Arctic seabirds for plastics larger than one millimetre in size and comparing those findings to data from a decade ago.
“We now have a baseline of what the trends of plastic ingestion are,” said Julia Baak, the paper’s lead author and a master’s student studying biology at Acadia University in Nova Scotia.
Baak examined 20 black-legged kittiwakes, 30 thick-billed murres, 20 black guillemots and 29 northern fulmars, all of which were collected by Qikiqtarjuaq hunters from the Nattivak Hunters and Trappers Association in collaboration with Acadia researchers.
