ABSTRACT
The massive increase of the human population produced an exponential increase in technological and industrial development around the world. This outburst of advancements has greatly increased awareness and concern for the quality of the environment over recent decades. No single region on earth can now be considered free from any pollutant. Many thousands of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) have been produced and in part released into the environment. They can now be found even in remote regions where they have never been used nor produced (Muir et al. 1988; Simonich and Hites 1995; Vilanova et al. 2001; Derocher et al. 2003).
