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Seabird plastic monitoring in Ireland
In Ireland, Heidi Acampora has focused her PhD study on using seabirds to monitor plastics. Of course, the fulmar is among the studied species. Recently a first paper was published. Although the number of samples is still small, preliminary results indicate considerable quantities of plastics off the Irish coasts. Among 14 Fulmars dissected, 13 had plastics in the stomach, all of them over the 0.1 threshold level used in Ecological Quality targets. The average fulmar stomach contained 65 plastic particles, weighing 1.1 gram. Plastics were found in several other seabird species, e.g. Common Guillemots and Northern Gannet.
Download the paper:
Acampora, H., Lyashevska, O., Van Franeker, J.A. & O'Connor, I. (2016). The use of beached bird surveys for marine plastic litter monitoring in Ireland. Marine Environmental Research 120:122-129
Until 24th of September 2016 free download.
Later available through library systems, or send an email to the authors.
The Irish Beached Bird Survey website of Heidi Acampora https://plastictides.wordpress.com/
