Marine Debris Impacts on Seabirds

1
Marine Debris Impacts on Seabirds
Photo Rich Stallcup
David Hyrenbach, Carol Keiper, Jennifer Stock
2
What is Marine Debris?

• Marine litter (debris)
• Includes man-made objects that do not
• naturally occur in the marine environment
• Consists of articles that have been made or
• used by people and, deliberately discarded or
  
  accidentally lost. In most
  cases, it is the
  
  result of careless handling or disposal
• Includes very slowly degradable items made
• of diverse persistent materials such as plastic,
• polystyrene, metals and glass
• Blows around, remains floating on the water
• surface, drifts in the water column, gets
  entangled,
• or sinks to the seabed
• (http//www.marine-litter.gpa.unep.org)

After 12 years adrift, the frogs and turtles
remained true to their original colors (green and
blue), whereas the ducks and beavers faded from
yellow and red to white, respectively.
Photo Dorothy Orbison
3
Marine Debris The Saga Continues

• Twelve years and counting
  (http//www.beachcombers.org/
  )
• On January 10, 1992, 28,800 turtles, ducks,
  beavers and frogs packed in a cargo container
  splashed into the mid-Pacific, where the 45th
  parallel intersects the International Date Line
  (44.7N, 178.1E) marked with .
• In Aug.- Sept. 1992, after 2,200 miles adrift,
  100s beached near Sitka, Alaska .
• Twelve years later, in 2004, beachcombers were
  still finding the critters.

Subpolar and Subtropical Gyres of the North
Pacific. Heavy lines average drift path Small
arrows local currents Dots Great Garbage
Patch Currents carry drifters along the heavy
lines around the Subpolar Gyre (3 years), and
around the Subtropical Gyre (6 years). Debris
stays in Garbage Patch for 50 years.
Map Jim Ingraham
4
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)

5
90 of floating marine debris is plastic
2.5 cm 1 inch
Photos Kathy Cousins / Irene Kinan
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Diverse Seabird Guilds

• Some birds feed at the surface
• e.g. albatross, storm-petrels
• Others dive underwater to pursue prey
• e.g., auklets, cormorants, shearwaters

(Ashmole,1971)
7
Patterns of Plastic Ingestion

• Study of the proportion of
  Alaskan
  seabirds with plastics
• Increase from early (1969-1977)
  
  to late (1988-1990) time period
• 1 diver (red-faced cormorant) and
  2
  surface feeders (northern fulmar
  
  and fork-tailed storm-petrel) had
  
  plastics in more than 50 of cases
• Over time, the incidence of plastics
  
  has increased much more in surface
  
  feeding than in diving seabirds

(Robards et al. 1995)
LESS MORE
8
Diverse Seabird Sizes

• For Hawaiian seabirds
  the bigger the
  beak, the larger
  the prey items you eat
• (Harrison et al. 1983)
• Bigger birds ingest larger items
• 20 100 mm (Albatrosses)
• 11 28 mm (Gulls)
• 2 4 mm (Shearwaters)
• 3.5 4.5 mm (Auklets / Puffins)
• (Fry 1987, Robards et al. 1995, Kinan 2000)

9
Diverse Ingested Plastics

• 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)

Wilsons Storm-petrel
Black-footed Albatross
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Size Matters

• The size and shape of the ingested plastic
  particles influences the impact on the health of
  seabirds
• (Fry et al. 1987, Sievert
  Sileo 1993, Auman et al. 1997)
• Large Plastic Items (10-15 cm long / 2-3
  cm wide)
• Cigarette lighters Light sticks
• Small Items ( gt 1 cm)

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Plastic Pervasive At-sea and On Beaches
The North Sea
New Zealand
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Plastic Pervasive At-sea and On Beaches

• 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
• One dead fulmar from Denmark had 20.6 grams of
  plastic in
  its belly, equivalent to 2 kilograms in a
  human-sized stomach
• One fulmar found in Belgium contained 1603 bits
  of plastic
• New Zealand Herald (7 February 2005)
  
• Paul Scofield, Canterbury Museum, Christchurch,
  New Zealand
• Most New Zealand seabirds have plastic in them
• Royal Albatrosses are scavengers. They are
  flying across the sea
• looking for anything with color. Nine times out
  of 10 it's a squid or
• a fish. They see stuff and they will swallow it
  just to have a look

13
Pervasive Plastic

• Northern royal albatross colony on remote
  outcrop called The Sisters, 850 km off New
  Zealand mainland
• Large-sized surface seizers
• Feed on squid and fish
• Scavengers
• Items ingested by albatrosses include red Coke
  bottle tops, lighters, pieces of buoys and
  fishing floats
• (New Zealand Herald, Feb 7, 2005)

BirdLife
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Plastic Pervasive At-sea and On Beaches

• Heard island Documented in seabirds in 2001
  (Auman et al. 2004)
• Inaccessible island Increasing 1984 1990
  (Ryan Moloney 1993)

Inaccessible Island
Heard Island
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Pervasive Plastic Looks like food

• Antarctic Prions (Heard Island)
• Surface seizers
• Feed on plankton
• Items
• Small particles (up to 8 mm)
• Orange and blue

AAD
(wingspan 17-20 cm)
AAD
Plastic debris ingested by birds at Heard
Island (Auman et al. 2004)
(length 2 4 cm)
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Pervasive Plastic Eaten by Mistake

• Great Skua (Inaccessible island)
• Scavengers
• Predators (of prions)
• Items
• Small pellets (up to 8 mm)
• Larger Items (up to 1.7 cm)
• Discarded in castings
• Secondary ingestion via prions

AAD
(wingspan 120 150 cm)
Photos Bill Fraser
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Plastics in the North Pacific Ocean

• Hawaiian Albatrosses (Sievert Sileo 1993,
  Auman et al. 1997)

• Tern Island () is in the middle of the
  Subtropical Gyre
• 3200 km from Aleutians (AC)
• 4500 km from California (CA)
• 4300 km from Kamchatka (KP)

• Two albatross species that breed there, feed
  lots of plastics to their chicks

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Black-footed Albatross Movements
(B)
(A)
(Hyrenbach et al. 2002)
Six foraging trips by one Black-footed Albatross
(Feb 5- April 24, 98)
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Laysan Albatross Movements
(Hyrenbach et al. 2002)
Six foraging trips by one Laysan Albatross (Feb 9
- April 15, 98)
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Albatross Use of Ocean Domains
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
(Hyrenbach et al. 2002)
(Day Shaw 1987)
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Trashed Across the Pacific Ocean, Plastics,
Plastics, Everywhere by Charles Moore (Natural
History v.112, n.9, Nov03)

• North Pacific Currents move in a clockwise
  spiral, or gyre, which traps debris originating
  from the North Pacific rim.
• Floating debris accumulates in
  the eastern garbage
  patch an area the
  size of Texas.
•  

• There is ½ pound of debris for
  every 100 m 2 of sea surface

So, a middle school basketball court would
contain 1.4 pounds
Texas is the size of 2.4 billion (2.400000000)
basketball courts.
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Overlap with the Garbage Patch

• Satellite tracking
• Nine birds
• (July - October 2004)
• Estimate the
  proportion of
  
  satellite locations
  
  from the eastern
  
  garbage patch

Cordell Bank
Eastern Patch
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Effects short-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)

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Effects long-term

• 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

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Effects on chicks

• Albatross chicks (Midway Atoll) (Sievert
  Sileo 1993)
• Compared chicks with Small / Large plastic (gt
  22 cm 3)
• Causes of death (1987)
• No change in Survivorship (1987)
• 87 vs. 83 (BFAL) 78 vs. 85
  (LYAL)

Photo Cynthia Vanderlip
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Effects on chicks

• LYAL chicks (Midway Atoll) (Sievert Sileo
  1993)
• Small / Large plastic (gt 22 cm 3)
• Decline in LYAL Chick Weight 2836g vs. 2714g
• NO decline for BFAL 3558g
  vs. 3412g
• Slower growth rate for LYAL
• NO decline for BFAL

Difficult to find strong evidence of impacts.
Looks like the two species respond differently.
27
Effects on chicks

• LYAL chicks (Midway Atoll) (Auman et al. 1997)
• Compared natural and accidental deaths (1994
  - 95)
• More plastic in stomach 0.0 136.3 g 0.0
  122.7 g
• Larger plastic items 0.1 34.9 g 0.0
  12.5 g
• Lower body mass 600 2900 g 1350
  2900 g
• Lower fat index 1 3
  1 3

Plastic does not kill the chicks directly, but
causes physiological stress due to satiation and
blockage
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Effects on chicks

• Albatross chicks (Midway Atoll) (Sievert
  Sileo 1993)
• Decline in LYAL Survivorship (1986) 76 vs.
  54
• Causes of death (good and bad years)

Plastics Ingestion Makes a Bad Year Even Worse
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• Analysis of Albatross 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 / Black-footed
  albatrosses
• Plastic found in every single one (100) 60 of
  bolus weight

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Albatross Bolus Analysis
Laysan (88 boluses) average 33 21 g
plastic - 17 (19) had lighters - 1
(1) had light-sticks
Black-footed (56 boluses) average 78 38 g
plastic - 0 had lighters - 0 had light
sticks
Monofilament line Lighters and plastic
bits Squid beaks and plastic debris
(Kinan 2000)
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• Analysis of Stomach Contents
• Researchers analyzed contents of dead chicks
• Kure Atoll (Hawaiian Island Chain) (Kinan
  2000)
• Analyzed 9 dead Laysan albatross
• Plastic found in every single one (100)
• Mean weight 151 79 g Maximum weight 475 g
• 3 carcasses (33 of birds) contained (red)
  lighters

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Pop Quiz

• Which one of these is not marine litter ?
• lost net life vest dead whale ham
  sandwich
• What proportion of floating marine debris is
  plastic ? Why so much ?
• (source
  http//www.marine-litter.gpa.unep.org)
• 10, 30, 50, 70, 90
• What proportion of the northern fulmars
  (Fulmarus glacialis) that researchers found
  washed up dead around the North Sea contained
  fragments of plastic?
• (source Edwards, 2005)
• 5, 25, 50, 75, 95

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What can you do ?

• Land-based discharges of human-made debris
  comprise the largest source of
  marine debris in oceans world-wide (nearly 80)
• (http//www.plasticdebris.org/)
• Paul Scofield, Canterbury Museum, Christchurch,
  New Zealand
• That the most important seabird-plastic issue in
  New Zealand is bottle tops getting into
  stormwater "If you throw bottle tops in the
  streets, they get into the stormwater and get out
  to sea. That's how the birds get them.
  "Something that you throw into the sea in the
  north Pacific is finding its way into our
  relatively pristine environments like The Sisters
  and the Forty-Fours. They are global
  problems
• Janice Molloy, The Conservation Department, New
  Zealand
• "What can we do? People just have to stop putting
  rubbish into the sea

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• California Coastal Clean-up/Adopt-A-Beach

California Coastal Clean-up/Adopt-A-Beach
AAD
AAD
AAD
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Pellet Ingestions and Potential
Effects Geographical Location / Species Reported
/ Description of Ingestion or Effects BIRDS
Alaska (Day, 1980) Northern fulmars, sooty
shearwaters, short-tailed shearwaters, red-legged
kittiwake, thick-billed murre, Cassin's auklet,
parakeet auklet, tufted puffin, horned puffin,
fork-tailed storm-petrel, Leach's storm-petrel,
northern phalarope, glaucous gull, black-legged
kittiwake, and least auklet. Ingestions likely
due to pellet resemblance to natural prey, and
will increase as annual plastics production and
use of pellets increase. Some particles embedded
in gizzard walls mean residence time in gizzards
may be approximately 15 months. Hydrocarbon
pollutants associated with the pellets may
decrease reproductive ability of seabirds.
California (Chu, pers. commun., as cited in Day
et al., 1985) Sooty shearwaters Ingestions
Galapagos Islands (Anon., 1981, as cited in Day
et al., 1985) Blue-footed booby Secondary
ingestion of raw plastic. Monterey Bay, CA
(Baltz and Morejohn, 1976) Northern fulmars,
pink-footed shearwaters, sooty shearwaters,
short-tailed shearwaters, Heermann's gull, and
black-legged kittiwake. Ingestions of PE pellets
in stomachs of 6 seabird species. New Zealand
(Imber, pers. commun., as cited in Day et al.,
1985) Great-winged petrels, kerguelen petrels,
Cook's petrels, blue petrels, broad-billed
prions, antarctic prions, fairy prions,
Parkinson's petrels, white-faced storm-petrels,
salvin's prions, and sooty shearwaters.
Ingestions in low to high numbers. Chatham
Islands and Gough Island (Bourne and Imber, 1982)
Broad-billed prions and white-faced
storm-petrels. Pellets normally found in the
gizzard, and birds containing pellets often
lacked food in the proventriculus. Difficult to
determine whether pellet ingestion is a cause or
an effect of starvation. Secondary ingestion by
great skuas that consume old, pellet-containing
prions. Eastern Canada (Brown et al., 1981, as
cited in Day et al., 1985) Greater shearwaters
and sooty shearwaters Ingestions reported. South
Africa (Furness, 1983, as cited in Day et al.,
1985) Greater shearwaters PS spheres ingested.
Dutch coast (van Franeker, 1985) Fulmars gt50 of
stomachs contained pellets toxic additives in
pellets may be assimilated by birds. Midway
Island and Oahu Island, Hawaii (Fry et al., 1987)
Wedge-tailed shearwaters 60 of birds contained
pellets (majority were PP and PE) and plastic
fragments toxicity of additives and
organochlorine pollutants may be less significant
hazard than obstruction/impaction of the gut of
seabirds risks to chicks may differ from risks
to adults. Scottish colonies (Furness, 1985)
Procellariiform seabirds (Leach's petrels, Manx
shearwaters, and fulmars) Fulmars and Leach's
petrels select debris according to their
preference for particular prey sizes. Only
equivocal statistical evidence for an influence
of ingested plastic on body mass. Pellets not
found in British storm petrels. Laboratory
experiment. (Ryan, 1988a) Chickens Even under
ideal feeding conditions, plastic-loaded birds
cannot forage as efficiently as plastic-free
birds. Large loads of plastic impair feeding by
reducing meal size, which may, therefore, limit
accumulation of fat reserves essential for
reproduction, migration, and molting. Antarctica
(van Franeker and Bell, 1988) Wilson's storm
petrels, southern fulmars, and Cape petrels.
Pellets comprised 73 of all ingested particles
(combined for all species) plastic particles
remaining in the gizzards of petrels may persist
for months or years if not regurgitated. Decrease
fitness is a likely consequence of ingestion by
chicks and adults. Most plastics originate in
wintering areas outside the Antarctic. South
Africa and Southern hemisphere (Ryan, 1987) Blue
petrels, great shearwaters, white-faced
storm-petrels, pintado petrels, thin-billed
prion, antarctic prion, salvin's prion, sooty
shearwater, grey phalarope, arctic skua, Cory's
shearwaters, grey-backed storm-petrel,
broad-billed prion, kerguelen petrel,
subantarctic skua, soft-plumaged petrel,
great-winged petrel, Atlantic petrel, and
white-chinned petrel. Three factors determine the
rate of pellets (and plastic) ingestion foraging
technique, dietary specialization, and density of
pellet (pollutants) in the foraging area.
Procellariiform seabirds exhibit the largest
plastic loads owing to foraging patterns at the
sea surface. Secondary ingestion of plastic
through contaminated prey is uncommon and was
found only in subantarctic skua which preys on
small petrels containing plastic particles. Gough
Island, South Atlantic Ocean (Ryan et al., 1988)
Great shearwaters (females only) Positive
correlation between polychlorinated biphenyl
(PCB) and plastic loads in the species PCBs
likely were derived from ingested plastic
particles, and these PCBs contribute
significantly to the total body load of PCBs in
great shearwaters. Long Island Sound (Hays and
Cormons, 1974) Gulls and terns PS pellets found
in tern and gull pellets (regurgitated
indigestible food). Southern Indian Ocean (Ryan
and Jackson, 1987) White-chinned petrels PE
pellets lost 1 of their mass after 12 days
(half-life equal to at least 1 year) no
instances of intestinal obstruction or physical
damage to the birds ingested plastic seldom
impairs digestive efficiency in seabirds. Hawaii
(Sileo et al., 1990)) Seabirds 80 species, or
approximately 25 of all seabird species, are
known to ingest plastic debris. Bodega Harbor, CA
(Connors and Smith, 1982) Red phalaropes 6 of 7
birds contained plastic particles, most of which
were PE pellets. Plastic ingestion may be
producing physiological effects that threaten
successful migration and breeding in regions
remote from the pollution sources. Galapagos
Islands and South Atlantic Ocean (Wehle and
Coleman, 1983, as cited in Wallace, 1985)
Blue-footed boobies, short-eared owls,
broad-billed prion, and South Polar skua.
Secondary ingestion of pellets from food source
blue-footed boobies and short-eared owls consumed
fish containing pellets, and skuas consumed
broad-billed prions containing pellets.
AAD
AAD
AAD