Seabirds as indicators of

plastic pollution in the North

Pacific Hannah Nevins1, 2, David Hyrenbach3, Carol Keiper2,

Jenny Stock4, Michelle Hester2, and Jim Harvey1

1 Coastal Ocean Mammal & Bird Education and Research Surveys (COMBERS), Moss Landing Marine Laboratories of California State Universities, 8272 Moss Landing, Moss Landing, CA 94924 2 Oikonos Ecosystem Knowledge, P.O. Box 979, Bolinas, CA 94924 3 Duke University Marine Laboratory, Beaufort, NC 28516 4 Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary, PO Box 159, Olema, CA 94950

Plastic Debris Rivers to the Sea Conference, Redondo Beach, CA 7-9 September 2005

Marine Debris Where is it found ?

•! Marine litter occurs everywhere in the world,

both marine and coastal environments.

•! Marine litter is found floating on the water surface.

•! Marine litter is found mixed in the water column.

•! Marine litter is found on the seabed. As much as

70% of the entire input of marine litter sinks to

the bottom both in shallow coastal areas and

in the deeper parts of the ocean.

•! Marine litter is found lying on beaches and shores.

(http://www.marine-litter.gpa.unep.org)

60 to 80% of Marine Debris is PLASTIC

What is a seabird?

•! Make their living in the marine environment

•! Only come to land to breed - often in large colonies on remote

islands

•! Return to breed at island where they were hatched & lay one egg

and raise one chick

•! Long-lived (e.g., Albatross >80 yrs, shearwaters >50 years)

Seabirds are biological indicators of

plastic pollution

•! Seabirds ingest (eat) plastic

•! They feed plastic to their young

•! Some species ingest plastic more often

•! Larger birds ingest larger pieces of plastic

•! There is an increasing trend in the number of species affected and incidence

Seabird Diversity

Four main orders of seabirds:

Sphenisciformes - Penguins

Procellariiformes - Albatrosses & Petrels

Pelecaniformes - Pelicans, Cormorants, Boobies, Frigate birds

Charadriiformes - Gulls, Terns, & Alcids

Penguin

Petrel

Pelican

Alcid

H. Nevins

H. Nevins

J. Harv

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Northern Fulmar

•! Diversified in Southern Hemisphere:200 g storm-petrel to 5 kg albatross.

•! Mainly surface pickers or scavengers, some divers

•! Expend very little energy flying – dynamic soaring, long wings

•! Webbed toes for swimming, taking off from water

•! Highly migratory - Carry food for young concentrated in oily slurry

Sooty

Shearw

ate

r

!! Order Procellariiformes

Laysan Albatross

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“Tubenoses”

Seabird Feeding Modes

(Ashmole 1971)

Seabirds are top-predators in the

marine ecosystem

Seabirds, Sharks,

& Marine Mammals

Predatory squid & fishes

Forage fishes &

macro- zooplankton

Zooplankton

Phytoplankton

Major Ocean Currents

North Pacific Gyre Alaskan Gyre

Hawaii

Kermadec

Trench/Ridge

Tïtï Islands, NZ

Monterey Bay, CA

Guafo I., Chile

Japan

Adams et al., unpublished data

Satellite-tracked Sooty Shearwaters

•! Tiny scraps of plastic in the chicks of Wilson's

storm petrels in the Antarctic (van Franeker 2005)

•! Cigarette lighters, light-sticks, syringes, toys from

albatross chicks in Hawaii (Kinan 2000)

Many North Pacific seabirds ingest plastics

Wilson’s Storm-petrel Black-footed Albatross

Body & bill size influences

plastic ingestion

Bigger birds with larger bills ingest

larger items

2 – 4 mm (Shearwaters)

3.5 – 4.5 mm (Auklets / Puffins)

11 – 28 mm (Gulls)

20 – 100 mm (Albatrosses)

(Fry 1987, Robards et al. 1995, Kinan 2000)

Leach's storm-petrel

Oceanodroma leucorhoa

Description:

•! Length: 7.5 inches Wingspan: 19 inches

•! Sexes similar, lays one egg.

•! Dark bill with tube on top

•! White rump patch, sometimes divided or missing

•! Feed by pattering feet on surface

Adults may live to be 40-50 yrs. old A chick is hatched after 50-75 days

Plastic ingestion is high 20% in non-breeding area (tropical

Pacific) and 100% in North Pacific Breeding area (Spear et al. 1995)

•! Alaska, Bering Sea (Robards et a. 1995, Vlietstra & Parga 2002)

•! California (Baltz & Morejohn 1976, Nevins et al., this study)

•! Eastern Tropical Pacific (Spear et al. 1995), New Zealnad (Collins 2005)

•! North Sea (Van Franeker & Meijboom 2002)

•! Heard island: Documented in seabirds in 2001 (Auman et al. 2004)

•! Inaccessible island: Increasing 1984 – 1990 (Ryan & Moloney 1993)

Plastics are a global problem for seabirds

Heard Island

Inaccessible

Island

North Sea

North Pacific

New Zealand

Species Plastic

incidence

n increase

Northern Fulmar 58%

84%

38

19

+26%

Tufted Puffin 15%

25%

348

489

+10%

Horned Puffin 37%

37%

148

120

~no

change

Parakeet Auklet 75%

94%

116

208

+18%

Alaskan Seabirds Change between 1969-77 and 1988-90

n = number of birds examined (Robards et al. 1995)

(Robards et al. 1995)

Alaskan seabirds show increases

in plastic ingestion

LESS MORE

•! Increase in proportion of species ingesting plastic from early (1969-1977) to late (1988-1990) time periods

•! 1 diver (red-faced cormorant) and 2 surface feeders (northern fulmar and fork-tailed storm-petrel) had more plastics than during original study

•! Over time, the incidence of plastics has increased much more in surface-feeding than in diving seabirds

•! Adult survival = 0.97

•! Age first breeding = 8-10 years

•! Longevity = 30-40 years

Nevins et al., unpublished data

Sophie Webb

Northern Fulmar

Stomach contents of dead fulmars

collected in California

Source: H. Nevins BeachCOMBERS

New Scientist Magazine (8 January 2005)

Jan Van Franecker, Alterra Marine Lab, Texel, Holland

•! 95% of all fulmars washed up dead

around the North Sea contained fragments

of plastic in their stomachs

•! 71% of 190 stomachs contained

plastic fragments Size = 5.7 ± 2.8 mm, n = 733

Color of user plastic fragments in Northern Fulmar stomachs

Pro

po

rtio

n (

%)

COMBERS data

Northern Fulmar

Satellite Data (n = 3 birds)

"! Post-breeding adults

"! Left colony in Gulf of

Alaska 13-14 Aug 03

"! Movement pattern:

"! Alaskan peninsula

"! Western Gulf of Alaska

"! Coastal B.C., WA, OR, CA

"! We assume this pattern is

representative of the

population

Scott Hatch, USGS-BRD, unpublish. data

Red Phalarope

Phalaropus fulicaria

•! 100% of birds had plastic

(n= 3)

•! Size = 2.6 ± 0.6 mm

•! Type: user plastics, pre-

production pellets

•! Colors: White, black,

green

REPH #662 – Plastics

Albatross Use of Ocean Domains

(Hyrenbach et al. 2002)

Laysan albatross forage more in

subarctic waters, farther north

Black-footed Albatross focus on

subtropical waters, farther south

Plastics are about 10 times more

abundant in the subtropical region

than in the sub-arctic

Plastics are 100 – 1000 times less

abundant in the Bering Sea (Day & Shaw 1987)

Analysis of Albatross Chick Boluses

•! Chicks regurgitate boluses of indigestible matter, which

are analyzed to study diet / plastic ingestion

•! Kure Atoll, Hawaiian Island Chain (Kinan 2000)

–! Analyzed 144 boluses from Laysan and Black-footed

albatrosses

–! Plastic found in every single one (100%)

Contents of a bolus

Photo: C. Vanderlip

Laysan (88 boluses)

average: 33 + 21 g plastic

- 19% had lighters

- 1% had light-sticks

Black-footed (56 boluses)

78 + 38 g plastic

- 0 had lighters

- 0 had light sticks

Albatross Bolus Analysis

(Kinan 2000)

Monofilament line Lighters and plastic bits Squid beaks and plastic

debris

•! Laysan Albatross (n = 9), Kure Atoll, Hawaiian Island

Chain

•! 100% Plastic ingestion

•! 33% of birds contained cigarette lighters

•! Mean mass: 151 + 79 g Maximum: 475 g

(Kinan 2000)

Chick Stomach Analysis

90% of floating marine debris is plastic 2.5

cm

1

inch Photos: Kathy Cousins / Irene Kinan

Are pollutant levels directly related to plastics ?

Polyethylene pellets lost 1% of their mass after 12 days

in the birds' stomachs, suggesting a half-life of one year

(Ryan & Jackson 1987)

The mass of ingested plastic was correlated with PCBs,

a group of chemicals commonly found in plastics

(Ryan et al. 1988)

It is probable that long-lived seabirds assimilate PCBs and

other toxic chemicals from ingested plastic particles

Effects: long-term

Large Plastic Items:

•! Cuts / abrasions: infection (Sievert & Sileo 1993)

•! Fill up / obstruct the stomach (Dickerman & Goelet 1987)

Small Plastic Items:

•! Reduce meal size and food consumption (Ryan 1988)

•! Reduce the storage volume of the stomach (Ryan 1988)

•! Little evidence of impaired digestive efficiency

•! No instances of plastic causing intestinal obstruction

•! Few cases of physical damage to the stomach lining

(Ryan & Jackson 1987)

Effects: short-term

Royal Albatross

© BirdLife

"What can we do? People just have to stop putting

rubbish into the sea” —Janice Molloy, The Department of Conservation, New Zealand

Pink-footed Shearwater © Michelle Wainstein

•! Increase understanding of marine wildlife –! Teacher workshops

–! Public events

–! Collaborate with existing sanctuary and coastal commission programs

•! Promote stewardship by providing a tangible example of how coastal watershed & beach clean-ups can make a difference

•! Link conservation activities with science via online satellite tracking of Sooty Shearwaters & Black-footed Albatross

Science integration via web-

based interactive maps

•! Collaboration with

researchers (TOPP,

MLML, Duke ML, NOAA, Oikonos)

•! www.Seaturtle.org host

real-time data

•! Oikonos provides

content

•! Signalsofspring.net

provides curricula

Seabird Quiz •! Which foraging mode is most likely to incur the

great incidence of plastic?

a) diving, b) surface-feeding, c) plunging

•! Which seabirds are likely to ingest cigarette lighters?

a) fulmars, b) phalaropes, c) albatrosses

•! Are seabirds living in remote islands free from plastic pollution?

Yes or No

AAD

AAD

AAD