Plastic pollution in the Labrador Sea: An assessment using the seabird northern fulmar Fulmarus glacialis as a biological monitoring species.

Plastic is now one among one of the most pervasive pollutants on the planet, and ocean circulation models predict that the Arctic will become another accumulation zone. As solutions to address marine plastic emerge, is essential that baselines are available to monitor progress towards targets. The northern fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis), a widely-distributed seabird species, has been used as a biological monitor for plastic pollution in the North Sea, and could be a useful monitoring species elsewhere. We quantified plastic ingested by northern fulmars from the southeastern Canadian waters of the Labrador Sea with the objective of establishing a standardized baseline for future comparisons. Over two years we sampled 70 fulmars and found that 79% had ingested plastic, with an average of 11.6 pieces or 0.151g per bird. Overall, 34% of all fulmars exceeded the Ecological Quality Objective for marine litter, having ingested >0.1g of plastic.

Levels of ingested debris vary across species in Canadian Arctic seabirds.

Plastic debris has become a major pollutant in the world's oceans and is found in many seabird species from low to high latitudes. Here we compare levels of plastic ingestion from two surface feeders, northern fulmars (Fulmarus glacialis) and black-legged kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla), and two pursuit diving species, thick-billed murres (Uria lomvia) and black guillemots (Cepphus grylle) in the Canadian high Arctic. This is the first report quantifying plastic ingestion in kittiwakes in this region, and as predicted, kittiwakes and fulmars had higher frequency of plastic ingestion than guillemots and murres. Despite this, amounts of plastic ingested by birds remain lower than regions farther south.