Publications by authors named "Jessie McIntyre"
Article Synopsis
- Abandoned, lost, and discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) severely harms marine environments, and managing it in Atlantic Canada is complicated due to gaps in knowledge about loss rates, locations, and regulations.
- A collaborative study in Southwest Nova Scotia successfully removed 29,298 kg of ALDFG by working with local fishers and organizations, using towed grapples over a significant area of seafloor.
- Many of the retrieved traps were old, catching both target and non-target species, including significant numbers of lobsters and endangered fish, with an estimated $155,836 CAD in annual losses attributed to ALDFG in one fishing area.
Plastics are a ubiquitous pollutant in the marine environment. Despite growing concerns, quantitative and qualitative data on microplastics in aquatic and marine environments of Atlantic Canada is just emerging. Surface water plastics were measured and categorized by morphology (thread, microfibre, fragment, foam, film, pellet, and microbead) in two locations in Nova Scotia and one in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSeabirds are important biovectors of contaminants, like mercury, moving them from marine to terrestrial environments around breeding colonies. This transfer of materials can have marked impacts on receiving environments and biota. Less is known about biotransport of contaminants by generalist seabirds that exploit anthropogenic wastes compared to other seabird species.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSouthwest Nova Scotia (SWNS) is Canada's most productive lobster (Homarus americanus) fishing region. Abandoned, lost, and discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) is widespread. This baseline study provides the first preliminary assessment of environmental and economic impacts of ALDFG on the commercial lobster industry in SWNS.
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