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Juan Pablo Seco Pon (ACAP's South American News Correspondent, based at the Departamento de Biología, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata and Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina) and colleagues, publishing on-line in the journal Marine Environmental Research have looked at trace metal concentrations in feathers of Black-browed Albatrosses Thalassarche melanophris killed by longliners in Argentinian waters.

The paper's abstract follows:

"We investigated the concentrations of cadmium, chromium, copper, iron, nickel, lead and zinc among feather tissues in sexes of Black-browed Albatross Thalassarche melanophrys killed in longliners off Argentina in 2005.  We found no different metal concentration with sex for cadmium, copper, iron, lead and zinc in feathers of adult birds, though there were significant body-size differences between sexes.  However, the concentrations of trace metals differed significantly among the type of feather within individual bird.  The mean concentrations of copper, iron, and zinc in breast feathers of T. melanophrys were lower than those reported for the species from Georgias del Sur/South Georgia, the southern Indian Ocean and for other seabirds' worldwide.  While cadmium fall within the known range of concentrations for bird feathers lead were not.  Our results may be indicating that level of pollution in Patagonia may not be as negligible as previously thought at least for some trace metals."

Reference:

Seco Pon, J.P., Beltrame, O., Marcovecchio, J., Favero, M. & Gandini, P. 2011.  Trace metals (Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Ni, Pb, and Zn) in feathers of Black-browed Albatross Thalassarche melanophrys attending the Patagonian Shelf.  Marine Environmental Research doi:10.1016/j.marenvres.2011.04.004.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 2 June 2011