Occurrence of Plastic Stabilizers in Fish, Seabirds, and Marine Mammals from Nunavut and Northwest Territories

The purpose of this research is to measure the levels of plastic stabilizers, including industrial antioxidants (SDPAs and SPAs) and UV absorbents (BZT-UVs and BPs), in Arctic char (both land-locked and sea-run), ringed seal, beluga whale, seabirds, and polar bear, and establish a baseline dataset for these emerging contaminants in the Arctic food web, and with potential addition to core POP/metal monitoring NCP programs for ringed seal (NCP M-04), polar bear (NCP M-05), beluga whale (NCP M-07), and Arctic char (NCP M-10), as well as other NCP supported work on seabirds (FY 2018/19 NCP M-23). As well as, to investigate the correlations between the levels of plastic stabilizers and plastic ingestion in Arctic char, beluga whale and seabirds (northern fulmars) and the possibility to use stabilizers as an indicator of plastic pollution exposure via ingestion. The following are the locations and species investigated at each. Nunavut: Cornwallis Island (land-locked char& ringed seal), Cambridge Bay (sea-run char), Hudson Bay (polar bear), Qaqulluit National Wildlife Area (Northern fulmar), NWT: Hendrickson Island (beluga).