Migrating Seabirds Are Bringing Forever Chemicals Into the Arctic | Hakai Magazine
Between March and May each year, 15 million black-legged kittiwakes gather from across the North Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to nest and breed on rocky Arctic cliffs—some making the journey from as far as Florida or North Africa.
But a new study suggests these seabirds don’t arrive empty-handed. They carry souvenirs from the south: forever chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) picked up in more polluted southern waters.
Countless products—from non-stick cookware to firefighting foam—contain PFAS, which leach into the air and water from landfills, industrial sites, or wastewater treatment plants. Previous studies have found that kittiwakes in the Arctic are loaded with these chemicals and suffer from their effects. PFAS disrupt their hormones, impair healing, brighten or dull coloration, and alter the hormone balance of eggs. Researchers assumed the birds’ PFAS load originated in the Arctic, says Don-Jean Léandri-Breton, a doctoral candidate at McGill University in Quebec and lead author of the new paper. His research found the assumption false; kittiwakes pick up these PFAS in more polluted southern waters, likely by eating contaminated fish, and then carry the chemicals hundreds or thousands of kilometers north to their less contaminated breeding grounds.
To trace the geographic origins of the PFAS, Léandri-Breton and his team captured kittiwakes at a breeding colony in Svalbard, an archipelago near Greenland, and affixed them with solar geolocators that could identify where they winter. Then, the following year, they recaptured the birds and sampled the PFAS concentration in their blood, looking at eight different PFAS chemicals.
