{"id":3987,"date":"2015-03-17T19:16:03","date_gmt":"2015-03-18T00:16:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=3987"},"modified":"2015-03-19T11:27:51","modified_gmt":"2015-03-19T16:27:51","slug":"mercury-in-endangered-ivory-gull-feathers-reach-a-130-year-record-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/mercury-in-endangered-ivory-gull-feathers-reach-a-130-year-record-high\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercury in endangered Ivory Gull feathers reach a 130-year record high<img src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/canada_flag_icon_small.gif\">"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_3988\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/bond.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3988\" class=\"wp-image-3988\" src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/bond.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"342\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/bond.jpg 800w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/bond-300x205.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3988\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adult ivory gull feeding on a seal carcass, Resolute Bay, Nunavut, Canada, 10 June 1989. (Photo credit: Keith Hobson)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Ivory Gulls have declined by more than 80 per cent in Canada since the 1980s and have been listed as an endangered species in Canada since 2006. These gulls have the highest concentrations of mercury in their eggs of any Arctic bird, but the reason for their decline is not well understood.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers measured mercury in feathers from museums bird specimens from 1877 to 2007 and found mercury had increased 45 times in adult birds. The problem of high mercury is a recent problem for this species.<\/p>\n<p>This new study adds more evidence for the problem of mercury in the Arctic, as elevated mercury levels may cause early mortality due to toxicity and may impair reproduction.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org\/content\/282\/1805\/20150032\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Original research paper<\/span><\/a>\u00a0published in <em>Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences\u00a0<\/em>on\u00a0<strong>March 17<\/strong><span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_453723367\"><span class=\"aQJ\"><strong>, 2015<\/strong>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em><strong>Names and affiliations of selected\u00a0authors<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<h4>Alex Bond,\u00a0University of Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan, &amp;\u00a0Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Sandy, Bedfordshire, United KingdomAdult ivory gull feeding on a seal carcass, Resolute Bay, Nunavut, Canada, 10 June 1989. (Photo credit: Keith Hobson)<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ivory Gulls have declined by more than 80 per cent in Canada since the 1980s and have been listed as an endangered species in Canada since 2006. These gulls have the highest concentrations of mercury in their eggs of any Arctic bird, but the reason for their decline is not well understood. Researchers measured mercury [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3988,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[170,114,1445,215,1810],"class_list":["post-3987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-tip","tag-biodiversity","tag-birds","tag-conservation","tag-environment","tag-saskatchewan"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/bond.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-12j","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3987"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3989,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3987\/revisions\/3989"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}