Lead contamination in tissues of large avian scavengers in south-central Europe
| Autor: | Maria Ferloni, Alberto Pastorino, Alessandro Andreotti, Roberto Facoetti, Alessandro Bianchi, Giorgio Fedrizzi, Irene Bertoletti, Enrico Bassi |
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| Rok vydání: | 2020 |
| Předmět: |
Eagle
Environmental Engineering 010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences media_common.quotation_subject Eagles Zoology 010501 environmental sciences 01 natural sciences Lead poisoning Predation biology.animal medicine Environmental Chemistry Sexual maturity Animals Humans Waste Management and Disposal Falconiformes 0105 earth and related environmental sciences media_common Vulture biology Obligate medicine.disease Pollution Europe Lead Poisoning Lead Shot (pellet) Reproduction |
| Zdroj: | The Science of the total environment. 778 |
| ISSN: | 1879-1026 |
| Popis: | Lead poisoning from spent ammunition is known to affect many avian species. Birds of prey ingest lead when feeding on game shot with lead gunshot or bullets. Raptors with scavenging habits are particularly vulnerable to ingesting lead in areas with intensive hunting and are good indicators of the risk of poisoning from lead ammunition. To assess how much facultative and obligate avian scavengers suffer lead contamination in south-central Europe, between 2005 and 2019 we collected and analysed 595 tissue samples from 252 carcasses of 4 species (golden eagle, bearded vulture, griffon vulture, cinereous vulture). Lead concentrations in organs showed a similar pattern across species with long and small bones revealing the highest median values (5.56 and 6.8 mg/kg w.w., respectively), the brain the lowest (0.12), and the liver and kidney the intermediate (0.47 and 0.284). Overall, 111 individuals (44.0%) had lead concentrations above background thresholds in at least one tissue (i.e. >2 mg/kg w.w. in soft tissues, >8.33 in bone) and 66 (26.2%) had values indicating clinical poisoning (>6 mg/kg w.w. in liver, >4 in kidney, >16.6 in bone). Tissue lead concentrations and incidence of clinical and sub-clinical poisoning were higher in golden eagles and griffon vultures than in bearded and cinereous vultures, likely due to different feeding habits. In all species we found a rapid increase in lead values with age, but differences between age classes were significant only in the golden eagle. Birds with lead fragments in their digestive tract, as detected by X-rays, had higher median lead concentrations, suggesting that hunting ammunition is the main source of lead poisoning. Our results imply that lead impacts the demography of these long-lived species with delayed sexual maturity and low reproduction rate. A rapid transition towards lead-free bullets and gunshot is therefore required across Europe. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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