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

• Published in: Marine Pollution Bulletin
• Main Authors: Bond, AL, Lavers, JL
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd 2013
• Subjects: Environmental Sciences; Environmental Science and Management; Conservation and Biodiversity; Newfoundland; Oceanodroma leucorhoa
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2013.02.030; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23507234; http://ecite.utas.edu.au/83539

Most plastic ingestion studies rely on dissection of dead birds, which are found opportunistically, andmay be biased. We used Leachs Storm-petrels (Oceanodroma leucorhoa) in Newfoundland to study theeffect of dose volume, and the efficacy of emesis using syrup of ipecac as an emetic. Ipecac is a safemethod of non-lethally sampling stomach contents, and recovered all ingested plastic. Almost half thestorm-petrels sampled had ingested plastic, ranging from 0 to 17 pieces, and weighing 0.216.9 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 studyplastic ingestion non-lethally allows researchers to move from opportunistic and haphazard samplingto hypothesis-driven studies on a wider range of taxa and age classes.