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Questions about eating kings..

5K views 26 replies 15 participants last post by  Dutch Treat 
#1 ·
I once heard it said that, "Whoever eats the most kingfish, eats the most mercury."

Number 1) Is this true?

Number 2) Why would kings be any more contaminated than, say, ling? Or any other species?

Tu Primo
 
#4 ·
Mercury collects over time. The slower growing fish contain more mercury because they are older. Fast growing fish like Dorado contain very little mercury by comparison. Kings are a relatively slower growing fish and mercury has more time to accumulate. Unless you eat Kings every week of the year, you probably have no danger of becoming mentally incompetent.I wouldn't advise feeding your kids those older bigger tunas and kings several times a week, the mercury will accumulate.
 
#5 ·
I have always wondered where the merc collects....

Surely when they issue a warning about mercury in fish they test using fillets and not the whole fish. I mean if the mercury collects in the fishes skin, bones, liver or other organs but not in the flesh then there would really be no problem eating fillets. Mercury would be bad for the fish but not for the fish fillet eater. Does anyone know ?
 
#6 · (Edited)
OK, I understand the thinking that smaller kings are "saf-ER" to eat than the larger kings, but as I do the math, there is something about this line of reasoning that is still bothering me.

It appears that all fish accumulate X units of mercury per year of their lives. Therefore, a 3 yr old king, or tuna, or snapper, or whatever, will have 3 units of mercury in its body. A 9 yr old fish will have 9 units in its body, however, it will also have more mass than the 3 yr old fish of the same species.

Therefore, it is looking to me, like the RATIO of mercury per bite of fish that we put in our mouths, is more or less the same, whether we are eating a two yr old dorado or a 10 yr old king. If we eat 3, three yr old dorados, we have eaten the same units of mercury as if we had eaten a nine yr old dorado. Same with kings, tuna, snapper, ling, tilefish, or whatever. The math is telling me that we are all getting the same ratio of mercury per bite of filet, whether we are eating a 50 pound king or a 3 pound dorado.

A 40 pound king will have more units of mercury than a 40 pound tuna, because the king gains fewer pounds of weight per year than the tuna - this is true - HOWEVER, a six year old king and a six year old tuna will have the same units of mercury in their bodies. The only difference is that in the tuna those units of mercury are a little more spread out due to its heavier mass. So how can we say that it is safer to eat a 70 pound tuna than a 40 pound king? Either way, we have ingested the same units of mercury.

Where have I made my mistake in my calculations?

Tu Primo
 
#7 ·
Mercuryfish

It's my understanding that the fast-swimming fish that feed at the top of the water column will have more mercury in their flesh. If you've ever looked at the color of the fillets from a big (40 pound plus) kingfish, these are not pretty pink and wholesome looking - they're gray. Fillets from small kings aren't nearly so discolored.

Many years ago, before we were aware of the GOM Kingfish advisory, I caught and ate a 47-pound king. Made about 20 meals. It's flesh was an ugly gray, but with lemonaide marinade and lots of black pepper it was entirely edible. Knowing what I know now, I would never eat one of those again. I caught a 53-pound King last June on the party boat trip out of Port A and ended up giving it all away.



I believe that I've heard that bottom dwellers (Snapper, Grouper, Redfish) aren't nearly as prone to mercury contamination because they grow faster and feed on other bottom-dwellers, and environmental mercury doesn't get down that far - at least not at the levels as at the surface.
 
#8 ·
Yes, it is true that a filet from a small king is pink and tasty, and a filet from a bigger older king is gray and yukky - but this is not because of mercury. This is natural. If you went back to the year 1505, and caught a big old king, his filet would be gray and yukky.

Mercury conamination is free of odor, color, or taste. And it permeates every cell of the body, be it liver, filet, eyeball, or tooth enamel.

Tu Primo
 
#9 ·
Mercury is measured as parts per million, or in other words amount of mercury per a given unit of weight. If they were to say 40 lb kings have twice as muchmercury as a 10 lb king, there would 8 times more mercury in the larger fish if you wanted to know the TOTAL amount of mercury in the fish. 4X more weight and each pound of te bigger fish has twice the mercury.

The reason the larger fish accumulate a lot more mercury is many fold, but a few of the key factors is that every pound of food a fish eats does not equate to a pound of flesh the fish adds. However the danger of heavy metals, such as mercury is that fish (and humans) cannot get rid of the heavy metals they eat. Therefore the longer you live the more concentrated the mercury becomes. If a pound of food eaten added a pound of flesh you would not get this accumulation. In addition larger kings eat larger fish which have more mercury than the smaller fish the smaller kings eat. It also has to do with what part of the ocean they live in and what they eat. Yellowfin have less mercury than blackfin tuna becasue blackfins live closer to shore where the mercury levels are higher.

Mark
 
#11 · (Edited)
Yes, you guys are right - we are dealing with 2 different rates, and they are not equal. On the one hand we are dealing with the rate at which fish accumulate mercury, and on the other hand we have the rate at which fish gain weight. The rate at which fish accumulate mercury is a linear function, but the rate at which a fish gains weight is not. A fish may gain weight at a rate that is slower than the rate at which it absorbs mercury.

The unit of measure "PPM" tells us the ratio of grams of mercury per pound of fish in that particular fish, but it does not tell us the actual rate at which fish accumulate mercury. There is a number out there - I do not know what it is, but it describes the rate at which all fish accumulate mercury, and it is measured in some MASS per UNIT OF TIME. For example, grams per year, or micrograms per year, or whatever. I have never seen the actual rate at which fish accumulate mercury published anywhere, but that number is out there somewhere and it is a constant. So, just for the sake of this discussion, let's pick an imaginary number - let's say that fish accumulate one gram of mercury per year, from the day they hatch to the day they die. The actual number is less than that, but let's just use that number for simplicity's sake for now.

OK, let's take an imaginary kingfish, and call him Vince. Let's say that Vince is 4 yrs old and he weighs 10 kg, or 10 thousand grams. OK, at the rate of 1 gram per year, this means that Vince has 4 grams of mercury in his body, and at 10 thousand grams of body weight, this means that he has a "ratio" of 400 Parts Per Million of mercury to flesh.

OK, now let's say that 4 more years have gone by, and now Vince is 8 yrs old. Since kingfish grow slow, this means that even though Vince's age has doubled, his body weight has not doubled. Let's say that now Vince weighs 15 thousand grams. OK, at 1 gram per year, this means that Vince now has 8 grams of mercury in his body, and at 15 thousand grams of body weight, this means that Vince now has a ratio of 600 Parts Per Million of mercury to flesh.

Based on this, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept gives us an advisory against eating "larger" kingfish, but not smaller kingfish. This does not make any sense to me, because even though the "PPM" is higher in older kingfish, if you eat 2- four year old kingfish, you have still put the same grams of mercury in your body as if you had eaten one 8 yr old king. If you put 8 grams of mercury in your body, does it really matter whether it came from an 8 yr old fish or 2 four yr old fish? The government seems to be using this PPM figure to distort the issue, to deceive us, to take our attention away from the fact that a younger fish still has the same ammount of mercury per year of age of the fish as an older fish.

I am curious to know the actual rate at which fish accumulate mercury. Has anybody ever seen this number published anywhere - does TPWD even want us to know? It would stand to reason that distance from shore will affect this number. For example, a snapper which lives at a rig 70 miles from shore might accumulate mercury at a rate of 1 gram per year, and a snapper which lives 20 miles out might accumulate mercury at a rate of 2 grams per year, and a redfish which lives in Burnett Bay will glow in the dark.

I'm gonna go fry some fish for lunch.

Tu Primo
 
#12 ·
I'm not following you Vinny. The Hg in a fish is accumulated through the food chain. Weight gain should be directly related to how much that fish eats. Older, heavier fish accumulate more Hg. I agree that if you eat enough of the smaller fish the end result may be the same but it will take a lot longer to achieve that level if you just eat smaller Kings. But then I don't like King flesh. The sad truth is that everything toxic has exposure limits. As long as those limits are not exceeded it is deemed safe. If the idea of Hg in Kingfish scares you then maybe you should not be eating them. I don't thimk there is any conspiracy going on. The governing bodies are just following the guidelines issued by the powers that be.
 
#13 ·
The accumulation rate is not constant. The bigger a fish is, the more it has to eat, and thus the rate of accumulation increases as the fish gets larger. Also like I said before, larger kings eat bigger fish which have higher mercury levels than the small fish the small kings eat.

Even if your "equal accumulation" theory was accurate a pound of 4 year old Vince at 400 PPM would obviously have less mercury than a pound of 8 year old Vince with a PPM of 600 PPM. You could eat 1.5 pound of 4 year old fish and get the same Hg as 8 year old fish.

However, the true rate of accumulation of Hg is a logarithmic funtion, and thus older fish have huge accumulations of Hg compared to young fish. There is a very good reason why it is suggested that people limit their consumption of larger fish.

Mark
 
#14 · (Edited)
Hey you guys,

Very good! I am really impressed! And I genuinely mean that! I wanted someone to show me where my math was wrong, and you did. I said that the rate at which fish accumulated mercury was a linear function, but it is not. It is not even an exponential function. It is even worse - it is a logrithmic function. Same as the Richter Scale.

Now this has me wondering about other species. Does this mean that an 8 yr old snapper accumulates 10 thousand times more mercury per year than a 4 yr old snapper, like with kingfish? If not, then why not? And I will tell you right now that I am not buying this stuff about "surface fish" having a higher exposure to mercury than "bottom fish." The mercury is all in the water and all in the sediment, all mixed up like stars and clovers and hearts in a bowl of Lucky Charms, so you are going to have to work pretty hard to convince me that kings are more exposed to mercury than groupers or ling, especially since mercury is heavier than water and it sinks to the bottom, where it is ingested by crabs and then the crabs are eaten by ling, snappers, redfish, croakers, bull sharks, and God knows what all else..

Tu Primo
 
#15 ·
This is all a big conspiracy by the guys that fish in the Kingfish and Red Snapper Tournaments ;-)

What if there is no mercury and they just want us to believe that there is. They just want us to release that 70lb King and that 40lb Sow ;-)

Later,

Lumberjack93
 
#16 ·
Methyl Mercury

Vinny, I googled methyl mercury and did a little reading. It is a naturally occuring substance as well as being deposited by pollution. Accumulations seem to be most acute in apex predators such as kings, sharks, etc., but it is apparently in all fish to some degree.

Age of a fish does not increase the rate of absorption. It is a cumulative total because mercury is never excreted. It remains forever.

I cannot describe a mathematical formula for the process. I am not a marine biologist or a mathematician but it seems fairly simple to me. Every time a king eats it ingests some amount of methyl mercury and that amount never leaves. Therefore big ones have more than little ones.

I am sure this is scientifically flawed, but it is the way I understand it. What do you think?

Bob
 
#17 ·
Why would you want to eat a 40+ pound kingfish anyways? These fish are the breeders that will produce the numbers for us in the future. A 40 pound king on average is 20 to 25 years old or even older believe it or not. Male kingfish usually don't get over 20 to 25 pounds. Unless I'm fishing a tournament I let all kings over 30 pounds go. The number of kings from 15-25 pounds are plentyfull, so why even argure about mercury. Just be a good sportsman take what you need and leave the rest for another day.
 
#19 ·
I finally found some actual numbers, and I found them to be quite interesting. I read that the Texas Dept of Health will issue advisories at 0.5 ppm, and that the FDA will take action at 1.0 ppm. Here is a table I found for tissue samples taken for several different species Gulfwide. I was kind of surprised to see that the average even for kings under 33" is still above 0.5 ppm. I was also surprised at the average levels for blacktip sharks, spanish mackerel, largemout bass, bluefish, and sand trout. I would still be curious to see some hard numbers for other species like Red Snapper, AJ, tuna, dorado, ling, etc..

Here is a link to the site - it is very informative and well worth visiting.

http://www.duxbury.battelle.org/gmp/hg.cfm#database

Well, I tried to post the table for everybody, but it came out totally messed up. If anybody would like to see the numbers, just click on the link I gave you, and then click on "Executive Summary."

Tu Primo



 
#20 ·
Well, I found more info on mercury levels in other Gulf species, and it does not look good. Here is a copy of the article for anyone who would like to read it, as well as a link to the page if anyone would like more info:

http://www.eces.org/archive/ec/np_articles/static/99577800025587.shtml

Scientists Say U.S. Govt Ignoring Widespread Mercury Contamination of Popular Marine Fish Such as Amberjack, Ling, Redfish, Red Snapper Because of Consequences to Seafood Industry and the Coal-fired Power Plants that Are Biggest Emitters of Mercury.
(7/22/2001)Several popular commercial and recreational fish species caught in the Gulf of Mexico - including the restaurant delicacies amberjack, ling and redfish - may contain so much methylmercury that they should not be sold to the public, according to standards set by the federal Food and Drug Administration.

Samples of these and other commonly eaten fish collected by the Mobile Register and sent to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality for testing were found to have mercury levels significantly higher than 0.5 parts per million, the threshold for government consumption advisories. Three 30- to 50-pound ling samples averaged 1.53 parts per million of mercury.

The tests commissioned by the Register indicated that a 4-ounce serving of a 10- to 20-pound redfish caught off Dixie Bar at the mouth of Mobile Bay would contain all the mercury a 158-pound adult male could safely handle in a month, under standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. That's about half a typical restaurant serving.

Gulf-caught amberjack purchased at local markets were equally high in the toxic metal, which can cause severe neurological problems and birth defects.

At present, no consumption warnings exist for any of the species tested by the Register. In March, the FDA advised women of childbearing age and children under age 12 to avoid king mackerel, swordfish, shark, and tilefish. But results of the Register's tests highlighted what a number of scientists say is a gaping hole in the government's fish-food safety net: Many fish preferred by American consumers are likely contaminated with dangerous levels of mercury, but federal and state authorities haven't tested them enough to know whether they are safe to eat.

Some scientists suspect that federal regulators know they would find high methylmercury levels in many of the fish that form the backbone of America's seafood supply. "They don't want to rock the boat. That's why they don't do the testing," said Charles Moore, a marine biologist with the South Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, who wrote an influential review of mercury contamination in marine fish.

"If you take the EPA and recent FDA (mercury) warnings to heart, it has tremendous consequences for the seafood industry, for restaurants, supermarkets, recreational fishermen, even the eating habits of the American consumer. It also has tremendous consequences for the energy industry - which is the single-biggest contributor of mercury in the environment - at a really critical time for the country's energy needs," Moore said.

Since the 1970s, government scientists have known that methylmercury contamination in fish poses a serious threat to health. When mercury is released from the smokestacks of coal-burning power plants and other sources, it falls on to the land and water. In the water, it is absorbed by microorganisms and transformed into an even more dangerous compound called methylmercury. The methylmercury becomes more concentrated as it works its way up the food chain in snails, crabs, then larger and larger fish, and ultimately in people who consume those fish.

At present, there are nearly 2,000 mercury warnings in effect for freshwater lakes and rivers in this country. Marine warnings are less common, though the mercury problem in saltwater received publicity in 1996, when Florida issued a consumption advisory for king mackerel. Other Gulf states followed suit in 1997.

The National Academy of Science reported last year that the neurological effects of methylmercury toxicity are most pronounced and damaging to children under 12, and to those exposed in the womb. The academy estimated that "over 60,000 children are born each year at risk for adverse neurodevelopmental effects due to in utero exposure to methylmercury." According to the report, this means "an increase in the number of children who have to struggle to keep up in school and who might require remedial classes or special education."

The committee also reported that, in adults, lower levels of methylmercury than those associated with neurological damage can still contribute to heart disease and impair the cardiovascular system's ability to control blood pressure and heart rate.

The EPA has said fish consumption provides the primary pathway for methylmercury to enter the human population. But not all fish contain the toxin. It is most concentrated in fish at the top of the food chain. In freshwater, that means fish such as bass, gar and northern pike. In saltwater, the most voracious predatory fish seem to have the worst mercury levels, scientists agree. That includes the fish sent for testing by the Register, and dozens of species such as king and Spanish mackerel, sharks, swordfish and speckled trout.

Unfortunately, many of the predatory fish are among the most popular species with consumers. Compounding the problem, scientists warn, is the age and size of the fish favored by commercial processors. Scientists say older, larger fish tend to have higher mercury levels, primarily because they've had more time to accumulate the methylmercury.

An informal survey by the Register of Gulf-area seafood wholesalers, grocery stores and restaurants found that restaurants and grocery stores tend to buy the largest fish they can because the bigger fish yield more dinner-sized servings per pound than smaller fish. Moore said this buying practice increases the average consumer's exposure to methylmercury.

Scientists with the EPA, the National Marine Fisheries Service and state health departments say the high methylmercury levels in king mackerel over the last several years should have served as a warning to federal food regulators that many other Gulf species likely would have similar amounts of the toxic compound in their flesh. These and other fish prey on the same smaller fish and swim in the same offshore waters as king mackerel.

"These large, long-lived apex predators are the fish that are going to have a mercury problem," said Tom Atkeson, the mercury coordinator for the Florida Department of Environmental Quality. "Those are the species to look at."

But neither federal nor state authorities have initiated a more comprehensive testing program for other offshore species. Some government scientists acknowledge that even when fish are tested, most results are essentially useless in determining the need for advisories because too little is known about the fish sampled. Federal documents suggest the FDA relies on these incomplete results when determining which fish deserve mercury warnings.

The Register also found evidence that the agency hasn't acted on test results published in federal reports that might lead to consumption advisories on popular species such as redfish, the No. 1 target of recreational anglers in the Gulf.

The FDA - created to ensure the safety of the American food supply - said its policy is to not comment on the methylmercury issue. An FDA spokeswoman in Washington did say that the agency is not currently testing any fish for methylmercury. The agency might test 12 species at some point in the future, she said, but its scientists are having a hard time figuring out which species would warrant testing. A Register review of the test results compiled in federal reports already available to the FDA, however, indicates that several species are clear candidates for more testing.

In the majority of the thousands of existing state and federal mercury test results examined by the Register, the length and weight of the fish were not recorded at the time of testing. "Without any information on the size of the fish, those data are not nearly as valuable," said Fred Kopfler, an EPA scientist working with the Gulf of Mexico Program. "You need the size data and a lot of other information to put out a helpful and meaningful advisory."

Kopfler, who helped compile results from all mercury tests conducted in the 1990s into a database, said the consumption advisory for king mackerel illustrates the need for size data. Under that advisory, king mackerel under 33 inches are considered safe to eat while fish over 39 inches "should not be consumed."

Scientists say that without size data it's impossible to know if large numbers of undersized fish - perhaps too small to be legally kept by fishermen - may have been tested, skewing the results away from the larger fish that are more likely to have higher concentrations of mercury. In addition, there have been relatively few thorough tests conducted on several popular commercial and recreational species, even when limited testing revealed high mercury levels.

In Kopfler's mercury survey, which the FDA says it uses as a source for determining mercury levels, there are 10 test results for black grouper. Black grouper - one of several groupers popular on restaurant menus - registered an average mercury level of 1.02, about even with large king mackerel and just over the FDA's "action level" of 1.0 parts per million. The agency defines the action level as "limits at or above which FDA will take legal action to remove products from the market."

The National Marine Fisheries Service reports an average of 399,161 pounds of black grouper are sold commercially in this country each year.

Kopfler's survey contains only six red snapper results. One snapper, caught off Florida's Atlantic coast, tested at 2.8 parts per million, far beyond all health standards for consumption. One FDA information paper lists the average mercury concentration in red snapper as 0.6 parts per million, citing, among other sources, Kopfler's compilation of test results. But the agency, calculating the average mercury in red snapper based on 10 samples recorded by Kopfler and other sources, apparently left the 2.8-parts-per-million sample out of its reckoning. With this fish in the average, the species comes up at 0.8 parts per million. When mercury occurs at that level, according to the EPA, a 158-pound man should consume no more than eight ounces of that fish species in a month, and then avoid all other potentially mercury-contaminated fish for the rest of the month.

For redfish, the Register found extensive mercury testing results compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association that indicate about 40 percent of Gulf redfish between 16 and 26 inches (the legal size range to keep in Alabama) have mercury levels above the 1.5 mark - which puts them in Florida's "should not be consumed" category. But even though this research is readily available - it is found in a federal report on toxins in Gulf seafood cited by the FDA as a source for mercury information - no warnings for redfish have been issued. The six redfish caught by local anglers at Dixie Bar and tested for methylmercury by the Register averaged 1.2 parts per million.

Some federal scientists contend there is a big hole in the mercury data for saltwater fish simply because no one wants to take responsibility for testing them.

States say that many popular marine fish are not in their jurisdiction because they are found outside of state waters, which extend from three to nine miles out, depending on the state. Cobia, tuna, and amberjack are primarily found from five to several hundred miles offshore. The same goes for red snapper, grouper and several other popular saltwater gamefish.

"We would like to do the testing," said Clark Bruner with the Alabama Department of Environmental Management. "If we had a million dollars and the feds said 'Go for it. Test saltwater fish with this money,' by God we'd do it."

Scientists with the EPA - a federal agency that could test in federal waters - say their program to monitor methylmercury in fish is run in cooperation with state agencies, which do the testing for them in state waters. For this reason, EPA officials say they rarely test fish from federal waters.

A spokesman for the National Marine Fisheries Service said that agency's primary job is making sure there are enough fish, not checking them for toxins.

All of those entities agreed with a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report that states, "the FDA is responsible for identifying and controlling public health hazards associated with seafood."

Some scientists - even within the agency itself - say the FDA isn't doing its job. "They're trying to protect Joe Blow who lives in Chicago, never been fishing in his life, eats a tuna fish sandwich on Friday and a month later has swordfish," said Fred Kopfler, an EPA official based in Mississippi. "That's their philosophy and it is valid, but it's not going to protect the people who eat a lot of fish."

Scientists with the EPA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say the FDA generally does "market basket swing surveys," testing things that can be purchased at the supermarket, such as frozen fish sticks or canned tuna. But sport fish and fresh fish commonly sold in restaurants and at local fish markets are ignored.

Some critics say the FDA seems to overlook its own guidelines, even in cases where a mercury problem has been identified, such as with king mackerel. Under the action-level rules, some say, the FDA was obligated to remove king mackerel over 39 inches from the marketplace.

But instead of curtailing the sale of large kings when they were shown to routinely exceed the action level, the FDA decided to allow those large fish to be sold commercially. The FDA based its ruling on a study that showed only 10 percent to 15 percent of commercially landed king mackerel exceeded 39 inches. Thus, said the FDA, there was only a 10- to 15-percent chance that the fish would have the high level of mercury.

"To me, that ignores the whole purpose of the action level, which is to make sure you don't go over the safe level of methylmercury," Moore said. "If you eat king mackerel, you have no assurance that the fish is not over 1.0 part per million. You don't know what you are eating."

Moore said it's critical to know how much methylmercury is in the fish people are eating. While a single serving of king mackerel with a mercury level of 0.8 parts per million may not pose a great danger, two servings would put the consumer well over the safe level, he said. Moore pointed out that a survey of commercially caught king mackerel shows that about half the fish had mercury levels of 0.8 parts per million or higher.

Government records indicate that swordfish, shark and tilefish - all available in seafood markets all over the country - also routinely exceed the action level.

But even if the federal agencies start a more vigorous testing program, and enforce the action-level rule, the situation could still be clouded by an interagency dispute between the EPA and the FDA. The agencies take radically divergent positions on methylmercury exposure.

The FDA tells consumers they can consume four times as much of the toxic compound as the EPA believes safe. The National Academy of Sciences, a federally sponsored roundtable of prominent scientists, recently sided with the EPA, saying its more conservative standards were scientifically justifiable for protecting human health.

There are some who question why the federal agencies charged with protecting the public's health seem reluctant to test for mercury in the seafood supply. Moore said the answer is obvious, and troubling. "If you don't ask the question, you aren't going to find answers you don't want to deal with," he said.

Publicity about mercury contamination not only threatens the multibillion-dollar seafood and recreational fishing industries, he said, it also raises concerns about the primary source of airborne mercury: the coal-fired power plants that supply much of the nation's electricity.

In December 2000, the EPA wrote that the mercury emissions are "significant hazards to public health and must be reduced." In a 1997 study, the agency found the amount of mercury in the environment had increased by 200 to 500 percent since 1890.

"This is one of the most serious environmental problems facing this country," Moore said. "I don't think the federal government sees a reasonable way to deal with it, so we're acting like ostriches, sticking our heads in the sand."

This is only an abstract. See the full article(s) at:

(07/22/2001) Mobile Register: Mercury levels in many Gulf fish don't meet federal safety standards.

Tu Primo
 
#24 ·
Well, it tells me that if I go to Stetson tomorrow and catch a limit of snaps or AJ or ling or whatever, that they should all average 0.8 ppm, which is well beyond the consumer advisory level. It would appear that FDA doesn't want to take this issue on, because it's too hot of a political football. Like the biologist said, the gov't doesn't see a reasonable way to deal with it, so they're just sticking their head in the sand and ignoring it. In the meantime, all of us on this board are most likely ingesting unsafe levels of heavy metal contamination, and feeding it to our wives and children. It would appear that just because there are no bans or advisories on these other species, that means absolutely nothing.

Tu Primo
 
#25 ·
Captain Blood said:
I used to keep kings.....then my cat died!!!!
I used to give my dogs all the cuttings that were too small for the freezer. All the blood lines, some skins... They loved when I came home stinking of fish because they knew they were going to get sushi treats.

My beautiful American Eskimo dog Prince Rupert died at age 10 of cancer(s). The doctor said that everything back of the rib cage was malignant.

Now I fillet my fish down at the water and the surviving dogs don't get anything I wouldn't eat myself.
 
#26 ·
mercury

i think everyone should release all the fish they catch.. that way there is more for me :). i really think that mercury is a problem but not the boogie man that that article makes it out to be. sure we take in some mercury when we eat fish but alot of other nasties are kicking our butts as we make our way to the day it won't matter. i don't think that i would feed a lot of fish to very young children but for adults that have a normal diet of one to two times a week i just don't think it matters. if it is the problem that some articles make it out to be the oriental countries should be growing a third eye and dropping like flies.... they eat a lot of fish, some old and big like blue fin tuna . and they eat it at 3-4 times the amount that we americans do. so anyway just my two and one half cents.... we get mercury and a lot of other nasties piled on our bodies daily without wanting it.. so i'll take my mercury with lemon and soy sause please. :)

tight lines to all ....jim
 
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