ABSTRACT
Published and unpublished data on levels and effects of pulp mill contaminants in wildlife are reviewed. Polychlorinated dioxins and furans were detected at high concentrations in eggs of various fish-eating bird species from the Strait of Georgia on the west coast of British Columbia. Highest concentrations were near pulp mills: for example TCDD, PnCDD and HxCDD in cormorant (Phalacrocorax spp.) eggs were as high as 100, 275 and 950 ng kg−1 wet weight, respectively, near a pulp mill in 1986. In contrast, levels of these contaminants in cormorants collected from colonies near pulp mills on the Canadian Atlantic coast were typically <15 ng kg−1. Polychlorinated dioxin and furan levels were also elevated in tissues of fish-eating waterfowl wintering in the Strait of Georgia, but lower in non-piscivorous waterfowl. Whales and porpoises sampled from the Strait of Georgia had lower levels than piscivorous waterbirds. Episodes of poor breeding success during the 1980s in a colony of great blue herons (Ardea herodias) near a bleached kraft pulp mill in the Strait of Georgia were associated with sublethal effects on embryos, including edema, reduced body weight and EROD induction. Sublethal responses including CYP1A induction and porphyria were linked to pulp mill contaminant exposure in eagles and cormorants in the Strait of Georgia and to herring gulls breeding near a mill in Quebec.
