environmental chemicals in Oystercatcher eggs

What is it about?

Due to the international importance of the Wadden Sea for waders and waterfowl a Song-term programme to monitor contamination of birds breeding in the Wadden Sea has been established in the early 1980s. One of the species selected is the Oystercatcher. Comparatively little is known about contamination of birds breeding inland. Therefore, we collected eight eggs of Oystercatchers breeding at the Lower Rhine (district of Kleve) and analysed their contamination with biocides (DDT, DDE, HCH) and industrial chemicals (PCB, HCB, Hg) in comparison to birds breeding on the Wadden Sea islands of Griend (NL) and Mellum (D), where ten eggs were collected in 1994/95. We found distinctive differences between inland and Wadden Sea breeding Oystercatchers. Eggs from the Lower Rhine had significantly higher residues of all organochlorines, whereas concentration of mercury was significantly lower than in those from birds breeding on the Wadden Sea islands. In general, eggs collected on Griend held lower concentrations than those collected on Mellum island, except pp'-DDT and Z PCB. The high PCB contamination in Ostercatcher eggs from the Lower Rhine nowadays reflects the extreme pollution in the past. However, concentrations of the parameters studied obviously had no embryotoxic effects in Oystercatchers.

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