Plastic waste transport by seabirds: silver gull Larus argentatus Pontoppidan, 1763 (Charadriiformes: Laridae) acts as vector transferring anthropogenic debris to the coastal zone
O. V. ILYINA1, YU. I. GORYAEV2, V. V. IL’INSKIY1, I. A. ZHDANOV3,4, A. A. POYARKOV1
1Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia
2Murman Marine Biological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Murmansk, Russia
3Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
4Yaroslav-the-Wise Novgorod State University, Veliky Novgorod, Russia
Keywords: anthropogenic stress, Arctic biota, Barents Sea, environmental pollution, Kola Bay, silver gull, plastic pollution
Abstract
Seabirds are able to occasionally ingest plastic waste in their feeding sites and excrete it as part of pellets and feces over new landscapes. In this study, the quantitative aspects of plastic transfer in pellets to the Salny island (Kola Bay, Barents Sea) by silver gulls Larus argentatus are estimated. The litter belonging to macro- and megaplastics size categories and classified as gull pellets are shown to be accumulated in the upper plateau of the Salny Island averaging the concentration of about 0.28 kg/ha. Adult birds are supposed to feed at municipal solid waste sites and carry plastic to the island during their nesting or transit stay. According to our observations, plastic ingestion is not accompanied by a decrease of the population: an increase of the nesting density on the island by 2-4 times over the observation period of 12-14 years is shown. For the first time the phenomenon of plastic waste transport by seabirds in the Russian part of the Barents Sea is described.
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