High Mercury Levels In Eggs May Be Linked To Collapse Of Ivory Gull Numbers - 80% Since Early 1980s

[hatrack]

The ivory gull has more mercury in its eggs than any other seabird in the Arctic, researchers have found – a fact that could explain why numbers of the boisterous seabird have plummeted dramatically over the last 20 years. Population counts done during the early 1980s found about 2,400 birds, while a survey done from 2002 to 2006 by Canadian Wildlife Services only found several hundred birds – a drop of 80 per cent.

This decline prompted the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada to assess the ivory gull as an endangered species last year. Climate change and excessive hunting in Greenland are both possible reasons why the ivory gull’s populations have nose-dived. But another possibility has been discovered by Birgit Braune, a research scientist with Environment Canada who studies toxic chemicals in Arctic wildlife, specializing in seabirds.

She examined ivory gull eggs collected from Seymour Island, a tiny island just north of Bathurst Island, in 1976, 1987 and 2004, using the tissue bank at the National Wildlife Research Centre in Ottawa, and ran a series of tests to look for persistant organic pollutants, such as PCBs and DDT, as well as flame retardants.

Most tests bore no surprises. But when she tested for mercury, a heavy metal that interferes with the nervous systems of animals, she found “the highest mercury levels in eggs of seabirds in the Arctic. That certainly was an attention getter,” she said during an interview last week. Some eggs contained enough mercury to prevent other birds from reproducing – although whether this would hold for ivory gulls is not yet clear. High mercury levels could also affect the behavior of birds, during the crucial period when a chick needs to be fed and kept warm.

EDIT

http://www.nunatsiaq.com/news/nunavut/70223_03.html

[Mnemosyne]

1. "It doesn't look like there are any limits on mercury's reach."

Higher levels of mercury seen polluting region
By Beth Daley, Globe Staff | March 8, 2005
Mercury contamination is more pervasive in Ne

snip>

"The impacts of mercury go well beyond what anyone would have
envisioned yesterday," said Michael Bender, director of the Mercury
Policy Project in Vermont and co-chairman of the state mercury
committee, who was not involved in the study. "It doesn't look like
there are any limits on mercury's reach."

snip>

But today's report indicates that the same type of toxic conversion may
be happening on mountaintops and forests, with mercury falling out of
the sky onto tree leaves and then dropping onto the moist forest floor.
Tiny insects then take up the mercury, and as insects are eaten by
larger creatures the mercury accumulates in greater concentrations up
the food chain, said David C. Evers, executive director of the
BioDiversity Research Institute who helped conceive the research idea
with Tom Clair, of Environment Canada, that country's environmental
protection agency.

snip>

The hot spots in the Northeast include the Rangely Lakes Region, Upper
Penobscot River watershed, and parts of midcoast and Down East Maine,
all of which are home to otter, mink, brook trout, yellow perch, bald
eagle, and the common loon whose mercury levels already exceed safe
levels.

Hot spots were generally defined as areas with two or more species
that had mercury levels above known thresholds for adverse health
effects.

more @ link:
http://www.mercurypolicy.org/new/documents/BostonGlobe030805.pdf


Mercury Contamination Moves Beyond Fish

'Every Link of the Food Chain Affected' a New Report Says

Once thought of as a problem found only in fish, wildlife experts now say they've found 40 species suffering from mercury contamination.

By LAURA MARQUEZ

Sept. 18, 2006 — Mercury contamination is making its way into nearly every habitat in the United States, not just oceans, according to a report that the National Wildlife Federation will release Tuesday.

The problem with high mercury levels in certain types of fish has been well documented, resulting in 46 states issuing advisories for pregnant women and children to avoid eating certain types of fish, including tuna and swordfish. High levels of mercury can lead to a wide range of physical ills, including kidney and neurological damage, and can cause fatigue, vision problems and tremors.

Scientists found high levels of mercury in bald eagles, songbirds, polar bears and alligators, to name just a few species. Alligator meat is very popular in the southeast, but there is no advisory against eating alligator meat.

Last year Utah issued an advisory for duck hunters, warning people to limit or avoid eating certain duck species because of high levels of mercury.

more @ link:
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=2459581&page=1


Mercury Connections:
The extent and effects of mercury pollution in northeastern North America
Developing an exposure profile for mercury in breeding birds of New York and Pennsylvania, 2005

Louisiana Waterthrush
© The Nature Conservancy

A comprehensive analysis of air, water and fish data shows that mercury levels are high and pervasive in northeastern North America. Data from extensive water and fish sampling illustrates the widespread nature of the mercury problem. Water samples from more than 1,000 locations in the Adirondack Mountains of New York and regions of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland have identified particularly high levels of mercury such that the New York State Department of Health has issued consumption advisories for sportfish taken from the waters of the Adirondack and Catskill regions.

snip>

Once mercury enters the body of an animal or person, it acts as a neurotoxin and can have a wide range of effects—from sublethal to lethal. Birds are particularly at risk since they eat mercury laden fish. They are also long-lived and therefore accumulate mercury in their bodies over a long time. Until recently, most research has focused on mercury in fish and fish-eating birds in aquatic environments. New research shows that many animals, even forest songbirds, have elevated mercury burdens. Based on these findings, scientists have begun to view mercury as not just an aquatic pollutant. It has becoming clear that insect-eating songbirds are being exposed to atmospherically deposed mercury, including those in terrestrial habitats such as high elevation forests, and that this exposure may in turn be linked to the long-term decline of several of these species.

snip>

Historically, The Nature Conservancy has stayed “out of the fray” when it comes to dictating governmental policy on issues such as atmospheric deposition of pollutants. But it is becoming increasingly clear that it is not enough to protect land from fragmentation, habitat destruction, poorly planned development, invasive species—all of the “traditional” threats to biological diversity and habitat robustness. Because mercury and other toxic emissions in one part of the country (or globe) have the ability to cause such profound impact on distant regions (or our back yard) the solution needs to occur on a larger, perhaps global scale. It is our hope that studies such as this one will provide important information to policy makers on the pervasiveness of mercury in the northeast and how synergy with other stressors such as sulfur and nitrogen could have broad-scale impacts on bird populations and ecosystem health. If our efforts here link emission sources in the Ohio River Valley with biological mercury hot spots in the Catskill Mountains, the premise of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s “Cap-and-Trade” ruling (which will allow power plants to purchase emissions reduction credits from other plants that reduce emissions below targeted levels, rather than install stringent controls to reduce mercury emissions at their own plants) will be further challenged. It is a question that we must ask and continue to study to ensure the future health of the Catskills.

snip>

more @ link:
http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/newyork/docs/art18345.html


Coalition Calls on DEP To Reduce Mercury Emissions

By Eric A. Failing, PLS

snip>

Jan Jarrett, Vice President of PennFuture, kicked off the press conference stating that her organization, along with a coalition of other organizations, have been working with DEP to develop a regulation that will cut mercury pollution at PA’s coal-fired power plants. While Jarrett stated that it was anticipated that DEP would finalize this regulation by November or December of 2005, a recent letter sent by Senators Mary Jo White (R-Venango)What a surprise, not. and Raphael Musto (D-Luzerne), and Representative William Adolph, Jr. (R-Delaware) urging DEP to hold off on the regulation, has brought this timeline into question. According to Jarrett, such a regulation is critical because PA’s coal-fired power plants release 83 % of the state’s mercury pollution. Nationwide, mercury pollution has resulted in one in six women having enough mercury in their bodies to harm the development of a fetus, said Jarrett. She added that every stream in PA has fish consumption advisories due to mercury pollution.

snip>

Nathan Wilcox, Energy and Clean Air Advocate for PennEnvironment, stated that his organization has collected postcard petitions from over 10,000 state citizens calling on the Rendell administration to act to cut mercury emissions from coal fired power plants by 90 percent. Wilcox added that

this issue is not “rocket science” and if we are taught as children not to touch mercury leaked from broken thermometers, then we should not allow it to be released into our environment.

(My aunt remembers mercury being brought in so they could play with it in science class! We always played with it when a thermometer broke, back in the 1960's.)

snip>

more @ link:
http://www.pfsc.org/MercuryCoalition.html


Insidious and pervasive. People really need to start paying attention and addressing this more urgently, imo, that is if we are not royally screwn already.

[NNadir]

2. I guess whenever a coal plant operates someone should say,

"What do you do about the waste?"

[Mnemosyne]

3. They seem to only ask that question when it becomes a matter of

NIMBY

Personally, I believe it should be stored in the backyards of those that benefit by receiving profits from these plants. Yeah, that will happen.