The relation between pollutants and disease in guillemots

Ecotoxicological and pathological studies of common guillemots Uria aalge beached on the Belgian coasts during six successive wintering periods

Context of the study

Within the frame of the third European North Sea Conference a program has been founded to monitor the health and causes of death of seabirds and marine mammals. In Belgium the common guillemot is by far the most abundant of all overwintering species (for both marine birds and marine mammals). For this reason it became the focus of this study. Although there is a lot of information available on pollution of sea birds by heavy metals and organochlorines, little is known about how this pollution relates to diseases or deaths.