In watching the program and from what I already knew about the problem, the
issue of whether this leads to heavy metal contamination is something new
and I'm not surprised if it is controversial. Probably understandable that
they would wish to make a link to human health (as in that this could effect
us too) to get the wider population of people involved. Either way I think
we can and should be concerned about the fauna impacts as its own issue.
Philip
-----Original Message-----From:
On Behalf Of Jeremy O'Wheel
Sent: Thursday, 6 September 2012 9:08 PM To: Carl Clifford Cc:
Birding-Aus Aus Subject: Re: [Birding-Aus] Oops, a Quantum shift
It's interesting. I've been paying a lot of close attention to this issue,
because Jenn Lavers is from my university, and one of the strongest critics
of her research, Dr. Maureen Davey, is a close family friend. A lot of the
results about heavy metals in birds haven't been able to be repeated, and Dr
Davey, who has worked in Aboriginal Health for many years (and is a medical
doctor, and senior lecturer in public health at UTas) was initially quite
concerned because short-tailed shearwaters are eaten (muttonbird) and the
contamination was high enough to cause toxicity in people eating it.
However the research she's been involved with hasn't been able to find
significant contamination, and I don't think there's been any demonstration
of negative health effects in people eating the birds either (although I'd
have to check that). There's also been a lot of criticisms of the methods
used, but I didn't really follow those. I should add that this my
impression from a number of discussion with Dr Davey (we often go birding
together), so it's entirely possible I've misunderstood.
There is no doubt that sea birds can be found with large amounts of plastic
in them, but it is much more controversial and debated as to whether this
leads to heavy metal contamination or not. I think it's an issue where more
study might be needed, and making conclusions would be difficult. I will
email Maureen with a link to the show though, and ask for a comment.
Regards,
Jeremy
On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 8:36 PM, Carl Clifford
<>wrote:
> Oops, I of course meant the ABC's Catalyst.
>
> Carl Clifford
Dear B-A,
An excellent but scary item on the effects of plastic ingestion by sea birds
and other sea life on the ABC program, Quantum, tonight. I was aware of the
problem with the ingestion of larger pieces of plastic on seabirds, but
researchers have found an even worse problem. It seems that plastic
particles adsorb pollutants such as mercury and it then enters the food
chain, ending up in the top predators, with us at the top. It has put me off
seafood.
The program is worth catching on iView.
Cheers,
Carl Clifford
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