Mercury in Fish: How Did It Get There and What To Do About It?

by Coty Perry

Over the past several decades there has been a growing awareness of mercury in commercially available fish. In fact, mercury levels have climbed 30 percent in the last 20 years in the Northern Pacific alone. Pregnant women, for example, are admonished to only consume a certain amount of fish. However, little thought is given to how the mercury ended up in the water in the first place.

The path of mercury from its primary sources in power plants, into the water, and then into our bodies through both drinking water and eating fish, is a curious one. It is also one that we must understand if we are to come up with sensible solutions for the very real problem of mercury contamination in our oceans, rivers, and lakes. 

Most of us have heard by now that the most common cause of mercury poisoning comes from the overconsumption of fish, but did you know that mercury can also end up in fish from aquaculture and fish farms?

Coty Perry (Anglers.com) goes deep into this topic in an article that explains just how bad mercury is in the environment, how it travels from industry into the air, into rivers, and into the sea, the sources of mercury, the common causes of mercury poisoning, and how biomagnification leads to the highest mercury in the fish that are higher in the food chain.

He also covers how mercury can be controlled and finally the good news about the trends in mercury emissions and how you can make the smart choice when buying fish.

The average mercury level in newborn children and women has declined, but rising planetary temperatures are causing problems with mercury re-emission.