Navarro Joan, Grémillet David, Afán Isabel, Ramírez Francisco, Bouten Willem, Forero Manuela G
Estación Biológica de Doñana CSIC, Avda. Américo Vespucio s/n, Sevilla, 41092, Spain.
Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, UMR 5175, CNRS - Université de Montpellier - Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier - EPHE, Montpellier, France.
PLoS One. 2016 Jul 22;11(7):e0159974. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0159974. eCollection 2016.
Urban waste impacts human and environmental health, and waste management has become one of the major challenges of humanity. Concurrently with new directives due to manage this human by-product, illegal dumping has become one of the most lucrative activities of organized crime. Beyond economic fraud, illegal waste disposal strongly enhances uncontrolled dissemination of human pathogens, pollutants and invasive species. Here, we demonstrate the potential of novel real-time GPS tracking of scavenging species to detect environmental crime. Specifically, we were able to detect illegal activities at an officially closed dump, which was visited recurrently by 5 of 19 GPS-tracked yellow-legged gulls (Larus michahellis). In comparison with conventional land-based surveys, GPS tracking allows a much wider and cost-efficient spatiotemporal coverage, even of the most hazardous sites, while GPS data accessibility through the internet enables rapid intervention. Our results suggest that multi-species guilds of feathered detectives equipped with GPS and cameras could help fight illegal dumping at continental scales. We encourage further experimental studies, to infer waste detection thresholds in gulls and other scavenging species exploiting human waste dumps.
城市垃圾影响人类和环境健康，垃圾管理已成为人类面临的主要挑战之一。在出台管理这种人类副产品的新指令的同时，非法倾倒已成为有组织犯罪最有利可图的活动之一。除了经济欺诈外，非法垃圾处理还极大地加剧了人类病原体、污染物和入侵物种的无控制传播。在此，我们展示了对食腐动物进行新型实时全球定位系统（GPS）追踪以检测环境犯罪的潜力。具体而言，我们能够在一个官方关闭的垃圾场检测到非法活动，19只装有GPS追踪器的黄腿鸥中有5只经常前往该垃圾场。与传统的地面调查相比，GPS追踪能够实现更广泛且成本效益更高的时空覆盖，即使是对最危险的地点也是如此，而通过互联网获取GPS数据则能够实现快速干预。我们的结果表明，配备GPS和摄像头的多物种鸟类“侦探团”有助于在大陆范围内打击非法倾倒行为。我们鼓励开展进一步的实验研究，以推断海鸥和其他利用人类垃圾场的食腐动物的垃圾检测阈值。
