”New” POPs in marine mammals in Nordic Arctic and NE Atlantic areas during three decades

• Main Authors: Dam, Maria, van Bavel, Bert, Rotander, Anna, Polder, Anuschka, Auðunsson, Guðjón A., Bloch, Dorete, Víkingsson, Gísli A., Mikkelsen, Bjarni, Gabrielsen, Geir Wing, Sagerup, Kjetil
• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Published: Nordic Council of Ministers 2011
• Subjects: Fauna; Oceans; Arctic; Greenland; Norway; Fin whale; Harbour porpoise; hooded seal; Iceland; minke whale; ringed seal
• Online Access: http://library.arcticportal.org/1525/; http://library.arcticportal.org/1525/1/POPs_in_marine_mammals.pdf; http://www.norden.org/en/publications/publikationer/2011-564

The report describes the findings of a Nordic study aiming to depict possible trends in “new” contaminants in marine mammals in Nordic Arctic waters over three decennia. The “new” contaminants in focus are the brominated flame retardants, BFRs, methoxylated PBDEs, perfluorinated compounds including the PFOS family, and polychlorinated naphthalenes, PCNs. In addition, brominated dioxins and dibenzofurans were analysed in a subset of the samples. The study aims at giving a wide scope of the presence of a selection of these “new” contaminants in marine mammals in recent time and so far back as is possible with extracting samples from specimen banks. The marine mammal species analysed were fin whale, minke whale, pilot whale, white-sided dolphins, harbour porpoise, ringed seal and hooded seal. The study is the result of collaboration between Norway, Denmark/Greenland, Faroe Island, Iceland and Sweden. The funding for large parts of the project has been made available by the Nordic Council of Ministers via the working group on Akvatiska Ekosystemer.