Lead found in Wellington’s kākā chicks

Publicly released:
New Zealand
PHOTO:  Flickr/Russellstreet
PHOTO: Flickr/Russellstreet

Researchers sampled almost 140 kākā nestlings born in Wellington over two seasons, finding that more than a third had detectable levels of lead in their blood, something that’s usually rare in wild populations. Despite the potentially toxic effects of lead exposure, all observed nestlings survived to fledge, prompting the authors to question whether this city population has built up an “innate tolerance” to lead concentrations at these levels. The authors call for long-term monitoring to get a better sense of how lead exposure could be affecting this group of urban birds.

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Research Elsevier, Web page
Journal/
conference:
Science of the Total Environment
Research:Paper
Organisation/s: Massey University
Funder: This research was supported in part by grants to A. Sriram and B. Gartrell from the Avian Health Research Fund, Institute of Veterinary, Animal and Biomedical Sciences, Massey University.
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