Anthropogenic feather soiling, marine debris and fishing gear associated with seabirds at Bird Island, South Georgia, 1999/2000

This report describes and quantifies occurrences of oil, marine debris and fishing gear associated with seabirds at Bird Island, South Georgia. In this, the seventh year of standardised recording, an unprecedented quantity of hooks (both with and without long-line attached) and monofilament long-line originating from fishing vessels was recorded in association with wandering albatrosses. Quantities of fishing gear remained within the levels of previous years for all other species, except black-browed albatross, which increased by133% from the previous maximum. Marine debris (the vast majority of which were plastics) showed 75% and 93% increases from the previous maxima for wandering albatross and grey-headed albatross respectively. The recently noted trend of black-browed albatrosses regurgitating marine debris continued. A single wandering albatross feather-soiled by oil was observed. Human food waste was associated with wandering albatrosses and giant petrels.