Print Email Facebook Twitter Marine litter monitoring by Northern Fulmars: Progress report 2002 Title Marine litter monitoring by Northern Fulmars: Progress report 2002 Author Van Franeker, J.A. Meijboom, A. Corporate name Rijkswaterstaat Date 2003-01-01 Abstract Corpses and stomach contents of 53 Fulmars beachwashed in the Netherlands during the year 2001 were investigated on the presence of marine litter ingested by these birds. These data were added to the existing database on this topic covering the years 1982 to 2000. Litter quantities in 2001 were relatively low as compared to some earlier years, but still 96% of birds in 2001 had plastics in the stomach, the average per bird being 22.7 plastic particles weiging 0.24 gram. Also, about 13% of the birds had ingested suspect chemical-like substances. Analyses of long-term (1982-2001) and short-term (1996-2001) trends indicated that industrial plastic particles continue their steady decline, whereas user-plastics show signs of decrease in a few recent years after peak pollution levels in the late 1990's. With participants in many countries around the North Sea, a similar study of litter in Fulmar stomachs has been started in 2002. This is a part of the 'Save the North Sea' campaign against marine litter, which is co-funded by the EU-Interreg IIIB program for the North Sea. This international Fulmar study will run from 2002 to 2004. Information collected by the combination of the Dutch and European Fulmar study will supply essential background information for the implementation of decisions by the Ministers of North Sea countries in Bergen (March 2003). It was decided that a system of Ecological Quality Objectives for the North Sea (EcoQO's) will be implemented. One of the EcoQO's envisaged for implementation in 2005 uses abundance of plastics in stomachs of Fulmars as a measure for marine litter (Fulmar-Litter-EcoQO). Details for EcoQO measurement systems and target levels need to be developed by ICES and OSPAR, and the fulmar studies discussed here will facilitate that process. Subject litterplasticchemicalsmarinemonitoringmarine litterEcoQO'sbird survey Classification KBR00LBR2000 To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:1949e755-d1d2-4620-8855-bc7cae5e6330 Publisher Rijkswaterstaat, RIKZ Source Rapportnr.: 2003.019 Part of collection Hydraulic Engineering Reports Document type report Rights (c) 2003 Rijkswaterstaat Files PDF rikz2003019.pdf 709.46 KB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:1949e755-d1d2-4620-8855-bc7cae5e6330/datastream/OBJ/view