Scientific Publication - Mercury concentrations in landlocked Arctic char (Salvelinus alpinus) from the Canadian Arctic. Part I: Insights from trophic relationships in 18 lakes (English, HTML)

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2024-02-14

This project is part of the Northern Contaminants Program core monitoring and looks at contaminant levels in landlocked Arctic char from lakes in Nunavut over time. Landlocked char are the only top predators in most Canadian high Arctic lakes and, therefore, can serve as a sentinel species for monitoring changes in contaminants. The project has information on persistent organic pollutants (POPs), mercury and other elements in char from lakes near the community of Resolute Bay, Nunavut and for Lake Hazen in Quttinirpaaq National Park on Ellesmere Island spanning up to 30 years. Results to date show that mercury concentrations in char from most of the study lakes have remained steady or have declined over the past ~10 years. Concentrations of most POPs are also declining steadily, except for total chlorobenzenes which were found to be increasing since the mid-2000s. This increase, which is mainly due to hexachlorobenzene, has also been observed in other studies of seabirds and ringed seals and suggests that there are still major emissions of chlorobenzenes despite its phase out globally under the Stockholm Convention. This study is on-going and would not be possible without…

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