Contamination of coastal and marine bird species with plastics: Global analysis and synthesis

This review article provides an account of coastal and marine bird species contaminated with plastics in light of ingestion, taxonomy, feeding clusters, types, shapes, colours and lethal and sublethal effects. Bird species were found contaminated with plastics in 39 locations/countries across the seven continents. Global analysis shows that low, medium and high plastic ingestion occurred in bird species across the globe. Fulmars, shearwaters, petrels, albatrosses, gulls, and kittiwakes (all marine/seabirds) were found contaminated with plastics in several locations in the world. Bird species belonging to the Procellariidae, Laridae, Diomedeidae (by taxonomy), piscivorous, molluscivorous, and cancrivorous (by feeding habits) were most contaminated with plastics. Microplastic, mesoplastic and macroplastic (by sizes), PP, PE, PS, PET, PAN and PVC (by types), fragments, pellets, fibres, foams, sheets, threads, fishing lines and films (by shapes) and white, blue, green, black, clear, red and yellow (by colours) were the most common plastics ingested by birds. Several bird species contaminated with plastics fall within the critically endangered, endangered and vulnerable categories. The ingestion of plastics can cause direct harm to birds resulting in death. In addition, plastic-derived toxic chemical additives and plastic-adsorbed toxic chemicals would be an additional stressor causing both lethal and sublethal effects that can cause greater harm to the health of birds. Several measures are suggested to reduce plastic pollution in the environment to safeguard birds and the environment.