News Coverage
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Tests Northeast Fisheries for Feed Contaminants
Published February 25, 2004
The Northeast region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is testing its hatchery-raised salmon and other fish for dioxin and other pollutants because of fears they could be picking up contaminants from commonly used feeds.
Marvin Moriarty, the service's Northeast regional director, said the tests were ordered after a study found farm-raised salmon contains significantly more chemicals, including dioxin, than salmon caught in the wild.
Massachusetts Fish and Wildlife spokesman Felix Browne said yesterday the state would start testing its hatchery-raised fish for the same contaminants March 10.
The study published last month in the journal Science suggested the pollutants came from PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) in the fish oil and meal fed to farm-raised salmon.
The fish farming industry was highly critical of a report last August by the Environmental Working Group in which just 10 fish were sampled and found to be high in cancer-causing contaminants.
The new study sampled 2 metric tons of both farmed and wild salmon and concluded that levels of these pollutants were much higher in farm-raised fish than in the wild fish -- and that the health risks of eating Atlantic farm-raised salmon "may detract from the beneficial effects of fish consumption."
The Science report recommended that farmers change fish feed and urged consumers to buy wild salmon."We are concerned and we have alerted all our regions," said Bob Backy, national director of the federal hatchery program. "We use many of the same sources as the commercial (fish) farmers for our feed."
Atlantic salmon do not die after spawning, and, unlike their Pacific cousins, can be used for years as brood stock in hatcheries. When they get too old for breeding, they are releasedfor recreational fishing.
Because they eat the feed longer, the older fish may have higher levels of contaminants, said Dan Kuzmeskus, supervisor of the service's hatcheries in the Northeast.
The service had planned to release 14,000 brood stock fish this winter, Kuzmeskus said.
Tens of thousands of trout and salmon are stocked in 35 Cape ponds in fall, winter and spring. The salmon come from the federal hatcheries. The trout are from state hatcheries, including the one in Sandwich.
Most of the releases were stalled by the extreme cold that iced over lakes and ponds.
Now, all salmon releases will be delayed until a representative sampling of the fish are tested, Kuzmeskus said. Browne said the state would stick to its normal stocking schedule for trout while waiting for test results.
Local fishermen yesterday were surprised by the results of the study.
"I love eating salmon," said Orleans fisherman Tony Stetzko, who tries to catch winter salmon in Cliff Pond in Brewster. "We are messing up everything, and we don't know if we can fix it," he said. "We're feeding fish food that messes them up. I really think that food should have been tested."