Plastic ingestion by the northern fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis) from Kongsfjorden, Svalbard

The Svalbard archipelago is polluted by plastic coming from different sources. Those sources, both local and distant, release high amounts of plastics which may then be ingested by local fauna. The northern fulmar Fulmarus glacialis (hereafter fulmar) is one of the few species studied in the frame of plastic pollution in Svalbard. The fulmar is an OSPAR species used for biomonitoring of plastic pollution in the North Sea and is well studied in the Arctic. However, data are lacking in some regions (including Svalbard) and for some life stages. The objectives of this study were to investigate the plastics ingested by fulmars collected in Kongsfjorden among two age categories: adults and fledglings (~50 days old) investigated for the first time for the purpose of plastic pollution. Almost all birds (95%) had at least one piece of plastic in their stomach. On average, 36 pieces and 0.21 gram of plastic were found per bird but the highest number was 381 pieces in a single fledgling. Polyethylene and fragment were the most common polymer and shape, respectively, across both life stages. Half of the birds (46%) exceeded the limit set by OSPAR (0.1 g of plastic) and fledglings showed significant higher number and mass than adults. The reported values are higher than previous data collected in 2015 in fulmars from Isfjorden that reporded 15.3 pieces and 0.08 g per individual, and 22.5% of birds above the OSPAR limit. Our results therefore do not support the hypothesis of a lesser plastic exposure to fulmars in the northern part of the Arctic. We also showed that all the fledglings sampled had ingested plastic pieces, often in high numbers, and could therefore suffer from both mechanical (stomach obstruction) and toxicological (pollutant leaching) negative impacts.