Toxic Fish Investigative Report: making consumers aware of what is in their local markets

While many of us bemoan the recent failure of CITES to initiate trade controls on bluefin tuna due to the concerted efforts of commercial tuna fishing interests, one of the strategies that we can turn to is to chip away at market demand. And one of the best ways to do that is to focus on the self-interest of the user: their own personal health.

Fish like tuna, swordfish, halibut, and others have exceedingly high levels of mercury that accumulate in their muscle and cartilage tissues, often times at levels well over recommended safe levels set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Got Mercury.org, a part of the Turtle Island Restoration Network, has just issued an investigative report where they sampled fish from 13 markets in the San Francisco area, ranging from a local Safeway to more higher end stores like Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. The fish samples were analyzed by an outside, independent laboratory - and the results were not good.

Over 40% of the fish had high levels of mercury (one sample registered over twice the EPA limit). Some of the stores had signs warning of possible mercury contamination; many stores did not. Click here to read the entire report.

Organizations like Got Mercury.org and media like "The Cove" are using a strategy which takes the position that if you don't care about the fate of the animal, at least consider what you are doing to yourself and your children. Perhaps a sad commentary on the attitudes of some regarding conservation, but in my book, whatever gets the job done.

Congrats to Got Mercury.org for telling it like it is.

Read more about Got Mercury.org. Read the entire investigative report.

Florida's Softshell Turtle: a target for Asian market demand

Along with shark fins for soup and bluefin tuna for sashimi, another aquatic animal that has been impacted by Asian consumer demand is the freshwater softshell turtle. With the boom in Asian economics, the demand for this oriental delicacy (and it's use as a homeopathic medicine) has skyrocketed to the point where populations of softshell turtles in Asian countries including China, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia have all been wiped out.

So, who is meeting this escalating demand? Sunny, fun-filled Miami. That's right, Florida is one of the leading exporters of softshell turtles, shipping them to Los Angeles or San Francisco for export overseas. One Florida seafood dealer alone processes up to 20,000 pounds a week - approximately several thousand turtles.

Federal laws that protect endangered turtle species do not extend to Florida's softshell species and while states like Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, and Mississippi have prohibited or severely limited harvesting of these turtles, the only regulation in effect in Florida is a temporary 20-turtle-a-day limit. With the number of licensed commercial fisherman in the state that still equals an annual harvest of more than a million turtles.

The battle wages between those who seek to prohibit or limit the commercial catch and the those who support the commercial industry and their need to catch a sufficient number so as to be profitable. Once again, it's the conflict of short term economic goals vs. sensible long term environmental policy. Remember, it's only man that considers the economic impact of limiting the harvesting of a limited natural resource; Nature does not care to hear the economic arguments. It only reacts to what is being imposed upon it.

"They've been around for hundreds of millions of years and have survived climate change and lots of other things," says Jeff Miller, Center for Biological Diversity. "And now we're about to eat them out of existence - in the blink of an eye, biologically speaking."