The Fulmars have the unfortunate habit of eating almost anything they encournter at the surface of the sea, including marine litter like plastics. Dr Jan van Franeker from the institute ALTERRA in The Netherlands is responsible for the international Fulmar study in the Save the North Sea project.
Tube on the nose  Fulmars, like the Albatrosses, belong to a specific group of seabirds: the tubenoses. The unique character of this oceanic group of seabird is that they possess tube(s) on top of the bill, rather than the nostril openings seen in other bird species.  If you find a bird similar to a gull in size and colour (grey and white) in the North Sea area, but with the characteristic tube on the bill, you are certainly looking at a fulmar. Fulmars are common throughout the North Atlantic and North Sea and are regulary found beachwashed along our shores. Plastics in birds´ stomachs Fulmars have the unfortunate habit of eating almost anything they encounter at the surface of the sea, including marine litter like plastics. Studies in the Netherlands have shown that in the Southern North Sea almost every Fulmar (98% of the birds) has plastic in the stomach. On average these fulmars now carry about 30 pieces or 0.6 gram of plastics. This figure is about double the amount found in the early 1980's, so there has been a significant increase. For comparison: on the scale of the human body, the current levels represent an average stomach load of about 60 grams of plastic per individual.		The unique character of the Fulmars is that they have a tube on top of the bill. Photo ALTERRA-Franeker.   Dr Jan van Franeker from the institute ALTERRA in The Netherlands is responsible for the international Fulmar study in the Save the North Sea project.