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Home → * News and Stories → Envi­ron­men­tal toxins lead to thin­ner eggs­hells for Ivory gulls

Envi­ron­men­tal toxins lead to thin­ner eggs­hells for Ivory gulls

Posted on 7. January 2013 by Rolf Stange

Envi­ron­men­tal toxins lead to thin­ner eggs­hells for Ivory gulls. This is one key result of a recent stu­dy made by sci­en­tists from the Nor­we­gi­an Polar Insti­tu­te (NPI), the Rus­si­an Ant­arc­tic Rese­arch Insti­tu­te (AARI) in St. Peters­burg and others. Sam­ples were taken in Sval­bard and arc­tic Rus­sia in 2007. Com­pa­red with data from the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry, eggs­hells from Spits­ber­gen and the Rus­si­an arc­tic are up to 17 % thin­ner.

Ivory gulls are on top of the food chain, and long-lived envi­ron­men­tal toxins such as PCBs and DDT are accu­mu­la­ting towards the top of the food chain. The thin­ned eggs­hells are shown to have high con­cen­tra­ti­ons espe­cial­ly of DDT.

DDT was gra­du­al­ly ban­ned in many coun­tries from the ear­ly 1970s onwards and is now used legal­ly only in rela­tively small quan­ti­ties to fight dise­a­ses such as mala­ria. After an ban on DDT in Nor­way, eggs­hell thic­kness of sea­b­irds and birds of prey reco­ve­r­ed again back to natu­ral values.

Ivory gull in Spits­ber­gen.

Ivory gull

Source: Nor­we­gi­an Polar Insti­tu­te

By the way, my new book is in print and it can now be orde­red 🙂 it is a pho­to book with the tit­le “Nor­we­gens ark­ti­scher Nor­den (3): Die Bären­in­sel und Jan May­en”, with Ger­man text Click here for fur­ther details!

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  • Norwegens arktischer Norden (1): Spitzbergen

    Photobook: Norway's arctic islands. The text in this book is German. [shop url="https://shop.spitzbergen.de/en/polar-books/70-norwegens-arktischer-norden-1-aerial-arctic-9783937903262.html"] ← Back
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    Lofoten, Jan Mayen and Spitsbergen from the air - Photobook: Norway's arctic islands. The text in this book is German, but there is very little text, so I am sure that you will enjoy it regardless which languages you read (or not).
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    The poster "Svalbardhytter" (70 x 100 cm) visualizes the diversity of Spitsbergen's huts in a range of arctic landscapes.
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    The companion book for the Svalbardhytter poster. The poster visualises the diversity of Spitsbergen‘s huts and their stories in a range of Arctic landscapes. The book tells the stories of the huts in three languages.
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    A geographical traveling accompaniment to Spitsbergen and East Greenland (68-74°N). This is the English edition of the German book "Steine und Eis".
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  • East Greenland in Winter

    Join an exciting journey with dog, skis and tent through the wintery wastes of East Greenland! We were five guys and a dog when we started in Ittoqqortoormiit, the northernmost one of two settlements on Greenland’s east coast.
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  • Postcard set Spitsbergen (Svalbard)

    12 Spitsbergen postcards in a beautifully designed tray. Individually numbered limited edition!
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    12 postcards which come in a beautifully designed tray. Beautiful images from South Georgia across Antarctica from the Antarctic Peninsula to the Ross Sea and up to Macquarie Island and Campbell Island.
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last modification: 2014-07-01 · copyright: Rolf Stange
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