Rather disturbing info

[Sk8man]

The thing I was surprised about is that the mercury isn't stored in the fat but in the muscle areas.....

http://www.mpnnow.com/news/20180307/are-finger-lakes-fish-safe-eating

 

Edited March 10, 2018 by Sk8man

[fergie]

Holy Vegitarian Batman!  Walleye is a no-no?  Perch, bass? Oh dear.  One meal a week?  Sk8man, is that your sized meal or mine which will feed half of Wayne Co.?  Fascinating to say the least!  Thanks for the info.

 

[Sk8man]

Guess we'll have to show a little restraint Skipper

[cinnamon fish]

It'd be nice if they printed more info on mercury levels in trout & salmon comparatively to the other fish mentioned, and comparative info for each finger lake.

[Xxx]

I can’t believe my only passion walleye fishing and eating after a good beer batter and in the peanut oil, I didn’t think you could get anything more healthy to eat, well I’ll cut back some but sometimes at camp we eat enough to put us over the edge of the scale for the year, and also smallies are good prepared next to the eyes. Well if you see a green glow coming down the lake it ain’t a UFO it’s pap, we just finished eating dinner LOL.

[Hillside]

I have read before that garlic and cilantro help to remove mercury from the human body.  I usually use garlic cloves when cooking my fish so I suppose that helps a little(?).  Of course it helps if those around you do not mind the smell of garlic for the next two days.

[K9hunter]

Lol I've reached my maximum free reads from daily messenger.
I'll stick with salmonids from Canandaigua.

Sent from my LGMP260 using Tapatalk

[muskiedreams]

It would be nice to have data on the levels per species per body of water or region. If the data needs to be acquired, maybe it can be done. If the SUNY students can do the testing and compiling of the data, I bet they could get the the fishing community to help with the samples they need.

 

But I wonder how long it stays in the environment and the food chain. We should stop burning coal but I wonder how many lifetimes it will take for the mercury in the environment and the food chain to lower to safe levels.

[JJBat150]

 

 One type of fish to stay away from in any lake, if you plan to eat, is walleye.

 

 

So I guess I'll have to avoid eating any walleyes from Canandaigua... Shouldn't be that hard. [emoji16][emoji16]

 

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[Lucky13]

1 hour ago, Hillside said:

I have read before that garlic and cilantro help to remove mercury from the human body.  I usually use garlic cloves when cooking my fish so I suppose that helps a little(?).  Of course it helps if those around you do not mind the smell of garlic for the next two days.

Bet ya don't have any problems with the Werewolves!

Edited March 10, 2018 by Lucky13

[Sk8man]

16 minutes ago, JJBat150 said:

 

So I guess I'll have to avoid eating any walleyes from Canandaigua... Shouldn't be that hard.

 

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[Neo1945]

Les, 

It seems to me that eating a fish that takes years to grow and lives a long time would be the high risk. How much Lake Trout do you eat?

Don

[Lucky13]

This needs to be viewed in context.  The article starts telling us to eat no more than one meal per week and four meals per month out of the Finger Lakes. (NYSDOH defines a meal as 1/2 lb of fish)  In fact, that is the overall NYSDOH guideline for fish from ANY water body in New York State.  So far, Canadice Lake is still the only Finger Lake that has a specific advisory, associated with a PCB discharge, someone was bringing home old transformers to reclaim copper, and dumped the fluid on the ground.  I saw nothing in the article indicating actual tissue concentrations or referencing them to  acceptable consumption standards.   It could be a lot worse, the Adirondacks has had advisories on perch, smallmouth bass,  walleye, pike, etc for quite a few years now, due to mercury contamination.  If you feed your catch to your wife and kids, you do really want to read all this.

 

 

I have never heard of the correlation between high mercury and low nutrients, up there it has always been expressed as additional mercury from the granitic bedrock.  If it was all deriving from atmospheric deposition, watershed size should be a factor, and most of those waterbodies have small watersheds. 

 

If mercury analysis was inexpensive, and did not require high levels of skill both for the analysis and the sample collection, maybe it would be something doable at the Citizen level. your best bet on that would likely be this researcher.  You should also be aware of the CSLAAP program coordinated  by DEC, what you are looking for may already be being done. 

 

 

https://www.health.ny.gov/environmental/outdoors/fish/health_advisories/regional/fingerlakes.htm

https://www.health.ny.gov/environmental/outdoors/fish/health_advisories/regional/adirondack.htm   

https://www.dec.ny.gov/chemical/81576.html

 

 

 

 

Edited March 10, 2018 by Lucky13

[fisherdude]

If landlocked salmon have a high content of Mercury I sure ate a lot of it last year and looking forward to eating some more this year

 

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[copperpin]

Can you say I'm a walking thermometer.  Wow thanks for the post. Back to packing my colon with venison Keep in mind all fish have certain levels of mercury in them.  Even farm raised.

[Sk8man]

Don - I haven't eaten a lake trout in about 20 plus years and other than an occasional relatively small rainbow or landlock on the grill,  I do eat perch routinely (3 or 4  times a month) and have had an occasional walleye which is my favorite freshwater fish to eat (unfortunately I guess). Swordfish (another favorite) and tuna also are reputed to have high levels of mercury but they too are a much larger fish....

Edited March 10, 2018 by Sk8man

[Neo1945]

On lake trout, do you think an occasional (smallest allowed by law) would be safe?

 

[Sk8man]

I'm not a doctor or chemist so alI I know is what I have read over the years. A couple things come to mind Don - .first is that mercury is a heavy metal and we probably ingest small amounts of it along with other chemicals in our lifetimes in a number of ways some "natural" and some not. So, the thing about heavy metals is that they stay in our systems and accumulate over our lives. Other toxins may be just as dangerous in significant amounts but many of them allegedly are stored in the fat layers of the fish; priincipally in the belly and back regions and dark material on the sides, so that when they are filleted in a manner by discarding these sections the concentrations and larger amounts of contaminants are removed - at least this is what has been thought for years. My feeling is that at our age (sorry Don) eating a few fish isn't as worrysome as a bunch of other things that can and do happen. The same is not true for younger people and women and girls of childbearing age as some of these toxins and heavy metals have been highly associated with birth defects and possibly cancer and eating the fish for longer lifetimes could predispose them  to illnesses or these concerns. I'd say fillet the laker properly and have a beer to go with it....that way if you croak from it at least you'll go happier.....guess that proves I'm not a doctor eh

Edited March 10, 2018 by Sk8man

[Neo1945]

At 73 ... I think I can chance it! 

[Sk8man]

[justtracytrolling]

I've not read anything suggesting fish, and more importantly walleye from otisco have any pollutants.  The water is tested several times a day and there is nothing upstream except cows. I guess if owasco has it from the rain then we probably due too, but if our rain is that polluted we are screwed no matter what we eat.

[Sk8man]

Yes Justin. I think the article was a bit short on important details as some of the others have mentioned. It was dealing with Canandaigua which doesn't have walleyes yet they make a big deal about them  and don't give any lake specifics mor comparisons for the places that have them.

Edited March 10, 2018 by Sk8man

[Roys Boys]

Thanks for sharing!

[signalman]

I think i will quit eating laker,s on seneca because i don/t think there are any more.

[Sk8man]

At least you have your stash of perch Mike....and then there is always your favorite seat at Wegmans