RAW STORY IS:
CARBON BALANCED; ALL CARBON EMISSIONS ARE OFFSET!

Biologist: Ocean pollution ‘threatening the human food supply’

By The Associated Press
Thursday, June 24th, 2010 -- 6:32 pm

garbagetrashpacificocean Biologist: Ocean pollution threatening the human food supply Sperm whales feeding even in the most remote reaches of Earth's oceans have built up stunningly high levels of toxic and heavy metals, according to American scientists who say the findings spell danger not only for marine life but for the millions of humans who depend on seafood.

A report released Thursday noted high levels of cadmium, aluminum, chromium, lead, silver, mercury and titanium in tissue samples taken by dart gun from nearly 1,000 whales over five years. From polar areas to equatorial waters, the whales ingested pollutants that may have been produced by humans thousands of miles away, the researchers said.

"These contaminants, I think, are threatening the human food supply. They certainly are threatening the whales and the other animals that live in the ocean," said biologist Roger Payne, founder and president of Ocean Alliance, the research and conservation group that produced the report.

The researchers found mercury as high as 16 parts per million in the whales. Fish high in mercury such as shark and swordfish — the types health experts warn children and pregnant women to avoid — typically have levels of about 1 part per million.

The whales studied averaged 2.4 parts of mercury per million, but the report's authors said their internal organs probably had much higher levels than the skin samples contained.

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"The entire ocean life is just loaded with a series of contaminants, most of which have been released by human beings," Payne said in an interview on the sidelines of the International Whaling Commission's annual meeting.

Payne said sperm whales, which occupy the top of the food chain, absorb the contaminants and pass them on to the next generation when a female nurses her calf. "What she's actually doing is dumping her lifetime accumulation of that fat-soluble stuff into her baby," he said, and each generation passes on more to the next.

Ultimately, he said, the contaminants could jeopardize seafood, a primary source of animal protein for 1 billion people.

"You could make a fairly tight argument to say that it is the single greatest health threat that has ever faced the human species. I suspect this will shorten lives, if it turns out that this is what's going on," he said.

Payne called his group's $5 million project the most comprehensive report ever done on ocean pollutants.

U.S. Whaling Commissioner Monica Medina informed the 88 member nations of the whaling commission of the report and urged the commission to conduct further research.

The report "is right on target" for raising issues critical to humans as well as whales, Medina told The Associated Press. "We need to know much more about these problems."

Payne, 75, is best known for his 1968 discovery and recordings of songs by humpback whales, and for finding that some whale species can communicate with each other over thousands of miles.

The 93-foot Odyssey, a sail-and-motor ketch, set out in March 2000 from San Diego to document the oceans' health, collecting pencil-eraser-sized samples using a dart gun that barely made the whales flinch.

After more than five years and 87,000 miles, samples had been taken from 955 whales. The samples were sent for analysis to marine toxicologist John Wise at the University of Southern Maine. DNA was compared to ensure the animals were not tested more than once.

Payne said the original objective of the voyage was to measure chemicals known as persistent organic pollutants, and the study of metals was an afterthought.

The researchers were stunned with the results. "That's where the shocking, sort of jaw-dropping concentrations exist," Payne said.

Though it was impossible to know where the whales had been, Payne said the contamination was embedded in the blubber of males formed in the frigid polar regions, indicating that the animals had ingested the metals far from where they were emitted.

"When you're working with a synthetic chemical which never existed in nature before and you find it in a whale which came from the Arctic or Antarctic, it tells you that was made by people and it got into the whale," he said.

How that happened is unclear, but the contaminants likely were carried by wind or ocean currents, or were eaten by the sperm whales' prey.

Sperm whales are toothed whales that eat all kinds of fish, even sharks. Dozens have been taken by whaling ships in the past decade. Most of the whales hunted by the whaling countries of Japan, Norway and Iceland are minke whales, which are baleen whales that feed largely on tiny krill.

Chromium, an industrial pollutant that causes cancer in humans, was found in all but two of the 361 sperm whale samples that were tested for it. Those findings were published last year in the scientific journal Chemosphere.

"The biggest surprise was chromium," Payne said. "That's an absolute shocker. Nobody was even looking for it."

The corrosion-resistant metal is used in stainless steel, paints, dyes and the tanning of leather. It can cause lung cancer in people who work in industries where it is commonly used, and was the focus of the California environmental lawsuit that gained fame in the movie "Erin Brockovich."

It was impossible to say from the samples whether any of the whales suffered diseases, but Wise found that the concentration of chromium found in whales was several times higher than the level required to kill healthy cells in a Petri dish, Payne said.

He said another surprise was the high concentrations of aluminum, which is used in packaging, cooking pots and water treatment. Its effects are unknown.

The consequences of the metals could be horrific for both whale and man, he said.

"I don't see any future for whale species except extinction," Payne said. "This is not on anybody's radar, no government's radar anywhere, and I think it should be."

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View Comments to “Biologist: Ocean pollution ‘threatening the human food supply’”

  1. 1jrodsarego

    We foolish humans are not long for this planet….our stupidity is staggering.


  2. 2gypski

    Along with the human need for greed.


  3. 3Democratic_Socialist

    HUMANS: Cancer upon the Earth. Aliens from the rest of Life. I am ashamed to be one of the species when I see pictures like this one and read these articles.


  4. 4shinyorbs

    DUH. That's the first thing I thought of *besides BushCo deregulating everything* when the oil well blew, “There goes the food chain”


  5. 5sandi2

    Not really like a cancer. Cancer cells form as a result of continued damage. We are more like a parasite–a flea or a tick. We suck the life out of everything until it can no longer support our society. However, because we can choose how we live our lives, we can change. We can learn to live as partners with Mother Earth rather than sucking the life out of her. Time is running out, though. We have to make that change now or we'll cease to exist.


  6. 6moxaman

    There is no hope for humans I'm afraid. Our judgement is tainted, our brains are poisoned with the same metals and chemicals found in these whales. As a result, we are brain damaged. It affects our ability to think rationally. We are on a collision course with nature, and we will assuredly lose.


  7. 7lucky_2

    Americans may be largely to blame one way or another, but I would think a lot of this is coming out of China. I wonder if it's possible to run tests near the coasts to determine from which country the pollution is coming from.


  8. 8dennycrane

    Dah……


  9. 9stephen miller

    When the ocean dies, so will we.


  10. 10MagnusTheDestroyer

    Blah blah. I'm a Raw Story commenter. I am compelled to leave a comment but all I can muster is something insidiously banal and unclever, and here it is.


  11. 11overdoneputaforkinit

    Red meat and potatoes conservatives don't eat fish and see this as God's Will that everyone buy beef (and make them rich). And if the oceans didn't have any fish in them, then who the heck would care if a deep sea ocean spill happened? Freedom to pollute raises profits for the polluters and those supplying the life sustaining needs in the aftermath disaster. And don't worry about the future, the Rapture will carry all the rich devout conservatives straight to heaven (a reward their devotion to personal responsibility) while the suckers expecting fairness and social justice got left behind on polluted Earth.


  12. 12dwightbaker

    NOW IT IS IN THE AIR
    What does forced Austerity look like?
    By Dwight Baker
    June 24, 2010
    Dbaker007@stx.rr.com

    Visitors to the coastal communities of southern Louisiana report an eery silence.

    The people are still there, but they're not talking.

    It's been made clear to them that their only hope of economic salvation – now that the fishery that provides 30% of the US seafood has been destroyed – is clean up work.

    And that work is controlled by BP.

    “Talk and your lifeline is cut.”

    Here's one person willing to talk…

    KINDRA ARNESEN@ THE GULF EMERGENCY SUMMIT

    http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/877.html

    RAY LOTTA

    http://vodpod.com/watch/3900645-nola-gulf-emerg...

    MY TAKE

    The history of mankind’s epic journeys on planet earth holds those truths to behold. But who wants to take a serious look back? Seems no one does in our free press! Maybe someone that writes a book might get close to those truths but beware folks not all in America buys and reads books.

    The job of informing the populous is squarely on the backs of those folks in daily print and seen on the TV.

    But from that group above there is not one serious side of up to date journalism. Many reference that one or that thing and try their best to draw an analogy that would befit the current events or as on a turf today the War in the Gulf of Mexico.

    The big shot journalist today refuses to dig deep to find the truth before they put out idiotic crap.

    So there ya go Folks the road to force Austerity is led by the writers and TV stars that have the job to inform us daily of what is really going on.

    Following is proof positive that we the people are in for the roughest road to travel that has ever confronted us as a people. Some day soon cameras will present the many sick and dying people up and down the coast. But in my way of looking at things I did my Job you did not so BIT TOO LATE to try and catch up.

    The proven results for BP not using the TAME NATURE plan to stop the oil plug the well that BP has known about since May 13th.
    Has produced Blights, Plagues, Disease, Stains, Afflictions that are coming on the wings of air borne infections.
    By Dwight Baker
    June 24, 2010
    Dbaker007@stx.rr.com

    How will CNN spin this one? What about the crew at MSNBC and FOX news and what about Charlie Rose, the end of the moron rope of spin masters just keeps getting more latched on to it as societal leeches. WHY that is the way to make the biggest bucks just reading scripts smiling a lot with glamorous attraction.

    The Piddle around pup Bob Jindal that has that perfect hairdo and speaks about how much he loves his folks in Louisiana, but does he? And Haley Barbour cannot leave him out of this, he likes to go behind closed doors and hide. Charlie Crist Governor in Florida after looking at my Plan along with his Lieutenant Governor passed me off to some kind of College think thank, I told Charlie NOT THANKS.

    Let us not forget at the top of the Federal heap President Barack Obama, is leading his intellectual clowns that could not find oil at a corner Stop FILL UP and GO convenience store
    So what are we to do? I suppose like in all good things waiting in the halls for community agreed consensus speaking out about the matters mentioned and then as in all good things worthy we must persevere while KEEPING ON!

    WEST RAINING OIL IN NEW ORLEANS

    http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/874.html

    EAST Not just a problem for the Gulf

    http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/875.html

    The same problems that are currently facing residents of the Gulf coast and points inland – ruined fisheries, closed beaches, toxic air and rain – will become problems for residents of the Atlantic coast later this summer.

    Not only will this be a problem for the coast, but it will also affect any land that receives rainfall originating in the Atlantic Ocean – a huge swath of the eastern United States.

    This model comes from the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

    Here's some information about them:

    “The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) was designed by a small group of innovative scientists, most of them university faculty members, as a creative response to major challenge that faced the nation in the years between the 1930s and late 1950s.

    Departments of Meteorology had been established at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Chicago, and other U.S. universities in the 1930s. Their goal was to investigate scientifically the physical principles that were thought to define the behavior of the atmosphere.

    Within a decade, military operations of World War II were unlike those of any previous wars-massive land, sea, and air assaults were highly dependent on weather conditions over vast regions from the North Atlantic to the South Pacific and from the poles to the tropics…

    In 1960, NCAR began operations in Boulder, Colorado, as a program of the National Science Foundation (NSF) managed by the nonprofit University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). At the time it funded the creation of NCAR, NSF itself had been in existence only ten years.

    Today, NCAR provides the university research and teaching community with tools such as aircraft and radar to observe the atmosphere and with the technology and assistance to interpret and use these observations, including supercomputer access, computer models, and user support.

    NCAR and university scientists work together on research topics in atmospheric chemistry, climate, cloud physics and storms, weather hazards to aviation, and interactions between the sun and earth. In all of these areas, scientists are looking closely at the role of humans in both creating climate change and responding to severe weather occurrences.”

    MAP OF THE DAY: Here Are The Beaches You May Want To Avoid This Summer
    Right now, visitors to the Gulf of Mexico are being exposed to a variety of oil related problems as they head to the region's beaches.
    The Deepwater Horizon Response team has detailed those beaches impacted by the spill.
    http://www.businessinsider.com/map-of-the-day-g...

    For a detailed plan of the TAME NATURE with an overshot contact me Dwight Baker dbaker007@stx.rr.com and one will be sent FREE OF CHARGE.


  13. 13SynGas

    Negativity can suck you dry, how could this article promote optimism. However, there are solutions. If we put an effort into living a more organic healthy lifestyle, things could change. Some believe we need oil and all of the other nasties, but that's just false. Humans didn't consume Fossil Fuels and all the other toxins on a large scale prior to the 1800's. Check out SolventFreePaint.com where they have high quality organic products from the Flax plant. Figure out how to make these products locally and promote their use. So many people live in plastic houses, drive plastic cars, eat plastic food, live plastic lifestyles full of unneeded stress and fear. It need not be that way. Turn it around on the personal level. That's the future, don't fight it, embrace it. The sooner, the more likely the planet can be appreciated and not decimated. But do it for yourself first and foremost. Boycott BP. Boycott centralized Energies. Decentralize the Power. Lots of info on the Internet. This info was much harder to come by 10 years ago. Use it and do away with the old hateful paradigms of fear and destruction. The kids will have their say.


  14. 14wunsacon

    STOP THE PRESSES! Haven't Japanese whaling scientists been studying whales? Surely, with all that investment (in /i/science/i/), someone in Japan already learned/reported this. And much more.

    Please pass the edamame. [slurping sounds]


  15. 15dredd

    A civilization existing in an epoch of epic proportions possibly to be brought down with the straw that breaks the camel's back?


  16. 16grindermonkey

    Oregon was one of the first states to institute a container deposit on beer bottles and cans. Almost overnight every discarded container was scoured from the road sides and to this day litter is almost never seen there. The photo above has in its foreground a five gallon plastic paint bucket that if purchased without paint would cost about $5 at Lowes or Home Depot. Requiring states to institute deposits on all plastic containers could have a similar effect and provide jobs for the collection, recycling and processing of both new and discarded containers. We the people need to clean up after these capitalist polluters, we need to pick up their trash and sell it back to them. They are abominations.

    Stop driving and start walking.


  17. 17SynGas

    I agree. Those plastic paint buckets disintegrate in the sun. Galvanized metal lasts longer. I prefer the taste of water from glass over plastic. In some states, anti-bottled water campaigns have brought the deposit to plastic bottles. When I return bottles there are sometimes people at the bottling centers who appreciate them so they can eat. A bit sad but practical. The paint at that website solventfreepaint.com actually improves with age. Leave it in the basement for a century and it gets better. Or run your diesel engine with it, that would be a waste but at least you'll never have to let it dry to bring it to the Landfill. Compare that to the crap chemical paint they sell at Home Depot. Plastic is a total scam. No longer will I use polyurethane when flax oil and beeswax/flaxoil wax is so much nicer, easier to use and doesn't offgas. If anyone out there knows of US made organic flax paint, let me know. Seems like a profitable business and Flax have beautiful blue flowers. Grow Flax and Hemp!


  18. 18kenthomes

    With what I have seen and read about human history – GOOD RIDDANCE TO BAD RUBBISH!


  19. 19kenthomes

    From what I have read and seen of human beings and their history of constant murder, warfare and violence toward their environment and all sentient beings, I say: “GOOD RIDDANCE TO BAD RUBBISH!


  20. 20frankfurter

    It's Natures way of telling you something's wrong. Smoke Pot!


  21. 21frankfurter

    “At 7PM a main hatchway caved in
    He said fellas it's been good to know ya.”
    I think we will die poorly.


  22. 22TomOfTheNorth

    Ya. And as a resident of Minnesota's Arrowhead region, I'd be ejected from the State if I didn't recognize lyrics from The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, donchaknow….


  23. 23TomOfTheNorth

    Spirit – 12 Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus….'course yer 'smoke pot' is an ad lib and not part of the original lyric


  24. 24willymack

    Let's face it, folks; the Gulf is as good as DEAD.
    It'll be decades, if not centuries before it's restored to the rich giver and sustainer of life that it once was.
    This is but a small part of what we're doing to the rest of the world.
    This is what happens when corporate hyenas are allowed to act out their psychotic dreams of wealth accumulation and power brokering.
    It could well be the death of us all.
    Now, tell me why our disappearance from this beautiful, tragic world would be a BAD thing.


  25. 25ComradeRutherford

    I am a Conservative! How dare the Federal Government dare to tell any private corporation to stop poisoning the entire food chain!!! If a private corporation decides it is cost-effective to kill off all life on Earth simply for a modest profit on their next quarter's earnings, then no one should have any ability to interfere!

    Private profits are far more important than human life! I don't care if BP kills off all of my children and grand-children, just keep Nazi Lefties like Obama (if that is his real name) off BP's profit margins! I am a Conservative!


  26. 26allfactssupportmypositions

    Willy, it was already half dead. 5,000 square mile dead zone every spring from what I hear.

    We don't need no stinkin' critters of fishes….


  27. 27Benway for the Nova Police

    I would like to nominate this story for the “No Shit, Sherlock?” Award.


  28. 28My3Cats

    The Borg. That's why we'll go into space. After sucking out all the resources here, we'll have to start sucking out Mars.


  29. 29Global Food Supply Threatened By Toxic Oceans : Survivalist News

    [...] Read Full Article Here: Biologist: Ocean pollution ‘threatening the human food supply’ | Raw Story. [...]


  30. 30Weekly Round Up July 2-2010 | Personal Patterns

    [...] Ocean pollution ‘threatening the human food supply’ – ‘Scary’ is a poor word compared to the situation. [...]


  31. 31Fast Online news

    Hurricane Danielle weakens away from Bermuda…

    I found your entry interesting do I’ve added a Trackback to it on my weblog :) …


  32. 32Ivy Drown

    When it comes to buying and selling you are not bound to any single action.


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