First record of plastic debris in the stomach of a hooded seal pup from the Greenland Sea

Marianna Pinzone,Erling S Nordøy,Gauthier Eppe,Cédric Malherbe,Krishna Das,France Collard

doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2021.112350

Abstract

Plastic debris is globally found around the world and the remote Arctic is no exception. Arctic true seals are sentinel species of marine pollution and represent the link between marine food webs and Arctic apex predators like polar bears and humans. With regard to true seals, ingested macroplastics have never been reported in an Arctic species. We harvested 10 harp seals Pagophilus groenlandicus and 8 hooded seals Cystophora cristata from the breeding grounds in the pack ice of the Greenland Sea. The digestive tract was inspected exclusively for the presence of macroplastics (>5 mm). Two pieces of single-use plastic were found in the stomach of a weaned hooded seal pup. This study indicates that young Arctic marine predators may ingest macroplastics, and therefore may be at risk during their early stages of life due to human caused plastic pollution even in the remote Arctic pack ice.

Highlights

Plastic materials production reached 368 million tons in 2019 (Plastic Europe, 2019)
Such permits regulate the annual hunting of hooded and harp seals for scientific purposes only. The necessity of such sampling was given by the lack of other potential methods: (1) it is rare – if not impossible – to find stranded marine mammals in the Arctic Ocean; (2) Indigenous hunting in the area focuses mostly on other spe cies; (3) the hooded seal cannot be harvested by commercial hunters; (4) the hunters are not interested in the digestive tract, which is usually thrown away after dissection; and (5) on commercial vessels there is limited capacity for storage of samples
There are very few data on plastic ingestion by marine mammals in the Arctic this region is expected to experience an increasing rate of environmental plastic levels (Provencher et al, 2019). Given their potential role as indicator species, being on top of the food chain, marine mammals, including true seals, should be one of the priorities of ecotoxico logical research, and for plastic pollution research. Within this short communication we report the first finding of plastic debris in the stomach of a seal pup of an Arctic species: the hooded seal

Summary

Introduction

Plastic materials production reached 368 million tons in 2019 (Plastic Europe, 2019). Recent reports estimated that between 1.7 and 4.6% would enter the oceans (Jambeck et al, 2015) and a part of them could reach pristine and low populated areas such as the Arctic. Observations are still rare, there is increasing recognition that marine plastic pollution has reached the Arctic Ocean (GESAMP, 2015). Plastic studies in the region remain a small fraction of all publications on this matter, with roughly 10 scientific publications focusing on plastic pollution in the Arctic in 2019 against 4833 overall (“plastic pollution Arctic” vs “plastic pollution” search in Web of Science). Data show that the European Arctic is not significantly less polluted than more populated areas further south (Halsband and Herzke, 2019)

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