Effectiveness of emetics to study plastic ingestion by Leach's Storm-petrels (Oceanodroma leucorhoa)

• Published in: Marine Pollution Bulletin
• Main Authors: Bond, Alexander L., Lavers, Jennifer L.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: Ipecac; Leach's Storm-petrel; Oceanodroma leucorhoa; Plastic ingestion; Seabird; Newfoundland
• Online Access: https://pure.uhi.ac.uk/en/publications/40cec598-72b7-4f24-89ad-3535c47768ad; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2013.02.030; http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84877832203&partnerID=8YFLogxK; http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84877832203&partnerID=8YFLogxK

Most plastic ingestion studies rely on dissection of dead birds, which are found opportunistically, and may be biased. We used Leach's Storm-petrels (Oceanodroma leucorhoa) in Newfoundland to study the effect of dose volume, and the efficacy of emesis using syrup of ipecac as an emetic. Ipecac is a safe method of non-lethally sampling stomach contents, and recovered all ingested plastic. Almost half the storm-petrels sampled had ingested plastic, ranging from 0 to 17 pieces, and weighing 0.2-16.9. mg. Using the Ecological Quality Objective for Northern Fulmars, adjusted for storm-petrels smaller size, 43% exceeded the threshold of 0.0077. g of plastic. Many adult seabirds offload plastic to their offspring, so storm-petrel chicks likely experience a higher plastic burden than their parents. The ability to study plastic ingestion non-lethally allows researchers to move from opportunistic and haphazard sampling to hypothesis-driven studies on a wider range of taxa and age classes.