Environmental toxins in urban animals shall measure the levels of environmental toxins in land dwelling animals and the degree of bioaccumulation/biomagnification. This shall be used to assess to what degree animals are exposed to environmental toxins and the potential effects that these can create. The objective of the programme is to procure information that The Norwegian Environment Agency can use in the regulation of new environmental toxins. In the work involved in regulating new environmental toxins, The Norwegian Environment Agency has had particular focus on poisonous materials that have a longevity in the environment, that become concentrated in organisms and spread over large geographical distances. Traditionally, the environmental monitoring has occurred in more untouched areas, but to gain better knowledge of how our consumption and environmental toxins in products affect the environment around us, The Norwegian Environment Agency is currently also executing environmental monitoring in town and urban areas. In order to get break-throughs for new regulations against environmentally damaging materials, knowledge about how the materials become concentrated in animals and the land is important, particularly since we current have most knowledge about how the materials behave in marine animals. The programme ‘Environmental Toxins in Urban Animals’ shall therefore particularly assist with data on how materials become concentrated via the food chain (biomagnification), but shall also provide information about what levels of environmental toxins animals that live in the urban area are exposed to and whether the environmental toxins that the animals have in their bodies on a whole represent a danger, either for the animals themselves or for other animals that eat them.