“A Black-footed Albatross was found entangled in discarded balloons and strings on Marina State Beach in June 2013”

Erica Donnelly-Greenan (Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, Moss Landing, California, USA) and colleagues have published in the Marine Pollution Bulletin on surveys of entangled seabirds on the coast of California.  Sooty Shearwaters Ardenna grisea made up 8%.  A few Arctic or Northern Fulmars Fulmarus glacialis were also reported, as was a Black-footed Albatross Phoebastria nigripes entangled with a balloon.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Marine fauna in the California Current System is susceptible to entanglement in anthropogenic debris.  We examined beach survey data from six California counties to describe trends of entangled marine birds and mammals (1997–2017). Surveyors reported 357 cases of entanglements among 65,604 carcasses. Monterey County had the greatest average entanglement rate (0.007) of surveyed counties, however, was not statistically different from Santa Cruz (p > 0.05). Twenty-six seabird species (97%) and three marine mammal species (3%), and three non-marine birds were affected. Numerically, Common Murre (23%), Brandt's Cormorant (13%), Western Gull (9.6%), Sooty Shearwater (8%) and Brown Pelican (7%) were the most affected due to abundance, but their entanglement rates were not statistically different (p > 0.05). The most vulnerable species were those frequently documented as entanglement despite low deposition numbers (Merganser spp. 25%). Entangling material consisted primarily of monofilament line (some hooks/lures), but other entanglement items were reported.”

Entangled Black-footed Albatross - from the publication

With thanks to Hannah Nevins.

Reference:

Donnelly-Greenan, E.L., Nevins, H.M. & Harvey, J.T. 2019.  Entangled seabird and marine mammal reports from citizen science surveys from coastal California (1997–2017).  Marine Pollution Bulletin 149: doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2019.110557.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 17 October 2019