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Fulmar litter monitoring in the Netherlands : Update 2021
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This monitoring update reports fulmar stomach content data from the Netherlands through 2021, tracking plastic ingestion rates in northern fulmars as a standardized indicator of marine litter levels in the North Sea, with microplastic fragments remaining a dominant component of ingested debris.
Fulmar Litter Threshold monitoring in the Netherlands -Update 2021Marine debris has serious economic and ecological consequences.Economic impacts are most severe for coastal communities, tourism, shipping and fisheries.Marine wildlife suffers from entanglement and ingestion of debris, with micro-particles potentially affecting marine food chains up to the level of human consumers.In the North Sea, marine litter problems were firmly recognized in 2002 when surrounding states assigned to OSPAR the task to include marine plastic litter in its system of Ecological Quality Objectives (EcoQOs) (North Sea Ministerial Conference 2002).At that time, in the Netherlands, marine litter was already monitored by the abundance of plastic debris in stomachs of a seabird species, the Northern Fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis).In 2020 the fulmar EcoQO was formally replaced and is now called Fulmar Threshold Value (Fulmar-TV or FTV; for more details see Van Franeker et al. 2021 and Kühn et al. 2021a).7.Over the 5-year period 2017-2021, 24% of the birds had ingested paraffin-like substances, with an average mass of 1.8 gram per bird. CONCLUSIONOn the longer term, stomach contents of fulmars beached in the Netherlands indicate that the marine litter situation off the Dutch coast is gradually improving, but still far off the Fulmar Threshold Value.At the current rate of the trend, the Fulmar-TV might be reached around the year 2066.Within 10-year evaluation periods the trend is not consistent, and showed no significant change over the most recent 2012-2021 decade.Future data must reveal if this reflects a temporary deviation, or a reversal in the longer term trend.
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Fulmar Litter Monitoring in the Netherlands - update 2022
AI summary Read the abstract
This report provides an updated 2022 assessment of plastic litter ingested by northern fulmars — seabirds used as indicators of marine plastic pollution — found beached in the Netherlands. While the long-term trend shows gradual improvement, current levels remain well above the target set for a healthy North Sea.
Fulmar Litter EcoQO monitoring in the Netherlands : Update 2017
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Long-term monitoring of plastic in the stomachs of Northern Fulmars in the Netherlands tracks marine plastic pollution trends over decades. Fulmar stomach contents are used as an official ecological quality indicator for North Sea plastic pollution, providing one of the longest running microplastic time series available.
Fulmar Litter EcoQO monitoring in the Netherlands : update 2016
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This report updated the Fulmar Litter EcoQO monitoring program in the Netherlands through 2016, using the plastic stomach contents of Northern Fulmars as indicators of marine litter levels in the North Sea. The seabird-based monitoring approach provides a long-term, ecologically meaningful measure of marine plastic pollution in European waters.
Life starts with plastic: High occurrence of plastic pieces in fledglings of northern fulmars
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Researchers found that 100% of northern fulmar fledglings examined from Svalbard in the Eurasian Arctic had ingested plastic, averaging 46 particles per bird. The most common plastics were white polyethylene fragments, with microplastics slightly outnumbering larger mesoplastics. The study suggests that fulmar fledglings may serve as effective indicators for monitoring plastic pollution trends over time.
Fulmar Litter EcoQO Monitoring in the Netherlands 1979 - 2007 in relation to EU Directive 2000/59/EC on Port Reception Facilities
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This long-term monitoring study used plastic abundance in Northern Fulmar stomach contents as an ecological quality indicator for marine litter in the southern North Sea from 1979 to 2007. Fulmars, as oceanic foragers that accumulate ingested litter over weeks, provide an integrated measure of marine litter levels, supporting the OSPAR Ecological Quality Objective framework under EU Directive 2000/59/EC.
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