Plastic ingestion by Northern Fulmars

Graphical abstract, from the publication

Plastic ingestion by procellariiform seabirds has been regularly featured in ACAP Latest News, and was ACAP’s theme for World Albatross Day in 2023.  In a recently published open-access paper Sterre de Bruin (Wageningen Marine Research, Den Helder, the Netherlands) and colleagues discuss plastic ingestion by the Northern Fulmar Fulmarus glacialis in the Marine Pollution Bulletin.  The authors show that 89% of fulmars in the Newfoundland Banks had ingested plastic items.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Incidental studies of plastic ingestion by the northern fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis) over a wide geographical range can improve our understanding of the distribution of marine litter in the global oceans and of the processes involved. A sample of 37 stomachs from northern fulmars (Fulmarus glacialis) collected in June 2021 near Flemish Cap at the eastern end of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland was analysed for the presence of plastic litter. Overall, 89 % of the birds contained plastic, with on average 6.6 particles, and a mass of 0.093 g per bird. No statistical differences were found in the quantity of plastic between males and females. A proportion of 27 % of all birds contained >0.1 g plastic, exceeding the Fulmar Threshold Value (FTV%) and international target of <10 %. Within an existing model that linked plastic abundance to latitude, the Newfoundland sample represented a clear outlier with a considerably lower FTV% compared to what would be expected. Flemish Cap is situated at the border between the southern tip of the cold and relatively clean Labrador Current coming from the north, and the warm and more polluted waters of the Gulf Stream further south. A logistic model using average annual sea surface temperatures representing North Atlantic current systems was applied and demonstrated a highly significant correlation, with the Newfoundland FTV% fitting much closer to the modelled prediction. This new model improves the understanding of geographical patterns in plastic uptake by fulmars."

Reference:

de Bruin, S., van Franeker, J.A., Meijboom, A., Jensen, J.-K., Jacobsen, B. & Kühn, S. 2025.  Plastics in stomachs of northern fulmars (Fulmarus glacialis) collected at Flemish Cap, Grand Banks of Newfoundland.  Marine Pollution Bulletin 215, 117894.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 08 May 2025