Plastics reach remote pristine environments, scientists say

Birds’ eggs in High Arctic contain chemical additives used in plastics

Ian Sample Science editor

Sun 17 Feb 2019 22.00 GMT

Scientists have warned about the impact of plastic pollution in the most pristine corners of the world after discovering chemical additives in birds’ eggs in the High Arctic.

Eggs laid by northern fulmars on Prince Leopold Island in the Canadian Arctic tested positive for hormone-disrupting phthalates, a family of chemicals that are added to plastics to keep them flexible. It is the first time the additives have been found in Arctic birds’ eggs.

The contaminants are thought to have leached from plastic debris that the birds ingested while hunting for fish, squid and shrimp in the Lancaster Sound at the entrance to the Northwest Passage. The birds spend most of their lives feeding at sea, returning to their nests only to breed.

Northern fulmars have an oily fluid in their stomachs, which they projectile-vomit at invaders that threaten their nests. Scientists believe the phthalates found their way into the fluid, and from there passed into the bloodstream and the eggs that females were producing.

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New prehistoric bird species discovered

Date: December 19, 2016

Source: University of Rochester

A team of geologists at the University of Rochester has discovered a new species of bird in the Canadian Arctic. At approximately 90 million years old, the bird fossils are among the oldest avian records found in the northernmost latitude, and offer further evidence of an intense warming event during the late Cretaceous period.

"The bird would have been a cross between a large seagull and a diving bird like a cormorant, but likely had teeth," says John Tarduno, professor and chair of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University and leader of the expedition.

Tarduno and his team, which included both undergraduate and graduate students, named the bird Tingmiatornis arctica; "Tingmiat" means "those that fly" in the Inuktitut language spoken in the central and eastern Canadian Arctic (Nunavut territory).

Their findings, published in Scientific Reports, add to previous fossil records Tarduno uncovered from the same geological time period and location in previous expeditions. Taken together, these fossils paint a clearer picture of an ecosystem that would have existed in the Canadian Arctic during the Cretaceous period's Turonian age, which lasted from approximately 93.9 to 89.8 million years ago.

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The bird that travels 29,000km a year

The Rufa red knot’s epic annual migration from Tierra del Fuego to the Canadian Arctic risks being grounded by climate change

Chris Mooney for the Washington Post

Monday 29 December 2014 14.00 GMT

They call him Moonbird, or sometimes, just “B95” – the number from the band on his leg. Moonbird is the most famous, charismatic member of a group of mid-sized shorebirds named Rufa red knots, whose numbers have plummeted so dramatically in the past several decades that they just became the first bird ever listed under the Endangered Species Act with climate change cited as a “primary threat”.

Rufa red knots are among the avian world’s most extreme long-range flyers (especially in light of their relatively small size). They travel vast distances – some flying more than 29,000km – in the course of an annual migration that begins in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, and extends all the way up to the Canadian Arctic(and back again).

Which brings us to Moonbird’s distinction: because he is so old – he is at least 21 – he is believed to have flown as many as 640,000km in his lifetime. The distance to the moon varies, depending on where it is in its orbit, but the average distance is about 380,000km. Thus, Moonbird has not only flown the distance it takes to reach the moon – he has also covered the bulk of the return voyage.

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