{"id":945646,"date":"2026-05-08T08:13:31","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T08:13:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/945646\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T08:13:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T08:13:31","slug":"penguins-are-helping-scientists-track-forever-chemicals-in-patagonia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/945646\/","title":{"rendered":"Penguins are helping scientists track \u2018forever chemicals\u2019 in Patagonia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n EDITOR\u2019S NOTE:\u00a0 Call to Earth is a CNN editorial series committed to reporting on the environmental challenges facing our planet, together with the solutions. Rolex\u2019s Perpetual Planet Initiative<\/a> has partnered with CNN to drive awareness and education around key sustainability issues and to inspire positive action.\n<\/p>\n

\n Researchers have found toxic \u201cforever chemicals\u201d on the remote southern coastline of Argentina \u2014 with the help of some avian assistants.\n <\/p>\n

\n Scientists fitted Magellanic penguins with silicone passive sampler (SPS) bands, a non-invasive tool that absorbs chemicals from water, air and surfaces.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been looking for alternatives to measure pollution on these species for long time,\u201d says Ralph Vanstreels, wildlife veterinarian at University of California-Davis and co-author of a study published in March <\/a>in the journal Earth: Environmental Sustainability. Inspired by wristband samplers that humans can wear to measure exposure to contaminants, he contacted Diana Aga, an analytical chemist at University at Buffalo, with a \u201ccrazy idea\u201d: \u201cWe place other devices on the penguin, so why not silicon bands?\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Over three breeding seasons, the interdisciplinary team gathered samples from 55 penguins. More than 90% of the bands detected polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS<\/a>) \u2014 a group of synthetic chemicals used in a huge range of everyday products, from non-stick cookware and raincoats, to firefighting foam and pharmaceuticals. PFAS are resistant to water, grease, chemicals and heat, but that durability makes them hard to break down. They build up in the environment and our bodies, and decades of research has linked them to health risks<\/a> including reproductive and developmental<\/a> issues, and cancers<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe concentration (of PFAS) is not high, but we found it consistently,\u201d says Vanstreels. \u201cIt shows that even in this very remote, not very inhabited region, these animals are getting exposure on a consistent basis.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\n Traditional ocean monitoring is \u201cexpensive and inefficient,\u201d says Vanstreels, requiring a boat and a lengthy expedition with a crew. But penguins forage widely in the ocean, providing a natural opportunity to passively collect data.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201c(The penguins) tell you which parts of the ocean are important, so that you\u2019re not sampling at random the whole ocean,\u201d he adds.\n <\/p>\n

\n SPS bands are typically worn by people as wristbands, but attaching standard bands to penguin wings would cause drag. Instead, the band was modified to include a small piece of stainless-steel wiring, allowing the field team to tailor the band to the width of the penguin\u2019s leg.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cMaking them to size for each individual penguin gives us more confidence that it\u2019s not going to fall off, and it\u2019s not going to cause discomfort,\u201d says Vanstreels.\n <\/p>\n

\"Deploying<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\n The process of fitting the band took two wildlife veterinarians around three minutes, minimizing distress to the birds, says Vanstreels, adding that after attaching the band, the team monitored from a distance to make sure the penguins were comfortable.\n <\/p>\n

\n Of the 57 birds fitted with bands for the study, just one had its band removed after Vanstreels suspected some discomfort, and only one band went missing after deployment.\n <\/p>\n

\n After the bands were collected, Aga\u2019s lab in Buffalo analyzed the samples using mass spectrometry. There are more than 7 million<\/a> unique variants of PFAS, so to narrow the study\u2019s focus, the analysis targeted a mix of 24 legacy PFAS \u2014 many of which have been banned or are no longer produced \u2014 and new \u201creplacement\u201d PFAS, many of which are not regulated, says Aga, lead chemist on the study.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThere\u2019s a rise in the replacement PFAS, which makes sense, but it\u2019s also concerning,\u201d says Aga. \u201cWe thought that replacement chemicals would be less persistent, but it\u2019s not \u2014 it\u2019s just as bioaccumulative, and according to epidemiologists and toxicologists, they are just as toxic as the legacy PFAS.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\n The negative health impact of PFAS on wildlife has been documented in hundreds<\/a> of studies, and analysis from the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a US-based nonprofit, has identified PFAS in more than 600 species<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n But data on many species is limited because traditional sampling methods, like blood or tissue samples, are invasive.\n <\/p>\n

\n David Megson, an environmental chemist at the UK\u2019s Manchester Metropolitan University, who is not involved with the research, says that the new method offers an innovative way to gather information about wildlife and its environment.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWhen we do research on animals, the way to get the best quality data is a lot of the time is to kill the animal, which is just really horrible for a lot of us scientists that do this, because we care a lot about the environment,\u201d says Megson. \u201cAny technique that is moving us away from sacrificing animals and measuring organs, I think is a really positive thing.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n While PFAS studies in North America, Europe and China are abundant, \u201cthere\u2019s been very, very little in South America, Africa, the Global South,\u201d says Megson, adding that the inclusion of emerging PFAS in the analysis was \u201cinteresting to see.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\n Megson notes that the results of the study don\u2019t directly show how much PFAS is accumulating in a penguin\u2019s body or its impact on the bird\u2019s health, but adds that the SPS bands could be a \u201ccomplementary technique\u201d to better understanding the environment they live in.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cTheir main route of PFAS exposure is probably going to be from the fish that they\u2019re eating, not the general background in their environment,\u201d says Megson. \u201cIf you could use the wristband to see what\u2019s going on around them, take a sample of blood, take a sample of the food that they\u2019re eating, then we can understand a lot more about that whole environment that they\u2019re exposed to, and where the PFAS are coming from.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n While Magellanic penguins are not endangered, 13 of the 18<\/a> recognized penguin species have declining global populations, or are listed as threatened.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThere\u2019s other penguins that live in areas that are even more densely inhabited,\u201d says Vanstreels, pointing to the critically endangered African penguin<\/a> in Namibia and South Africa, and the little penguin<\/a> in Australia and New Zealand. \u201cThose are examples of penguins that are living right next to urban centers, and potentially large areas of industrial activity where this kind of pollution might be more significant.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Endemic<\/p>\n

8 photos: The plight of the African penguin<\/p>\n

\n Vanstreels and Aga hope this study can be a \u201cproof of concept\u201d for further research, and plan to test the method on other wildlife, such as cormorants \u2014 seabirds that can dive more than 150 feet below the water\u2019s surface.\n <\/p>\n

\n And for the penguins, Vanstreels hopes to continue monitoring the bird\u2019s exposure to pollution, particularly on its winter migration north to Uruguay and Brazil.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThere is no way of protecting penguins in Patagonia without dealing with global problems in terms of pollution, in terms of industry, in terms of how we dispose of chemicals,\u201d says Vanstreels.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EDITOR\u2019S NOTE:\u00a0 Call to Earth is a CNN editorial series committed to reporting on the environmental challenges facing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":945647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3847],"tags":[70,16,15,1717],"class_list":{"0":"post-945646","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116537958055624199","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=945646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/945647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=945646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=945646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=945646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}