Bluefin Tuna From The Fukushima Nuclear Meltdown Still Have Traces Of Radiation

Monte Burke
forbes.com
February 21, 2013

Last May I wrote a piece about Bluefin tuna caught off the coast of southern California that carried radiation from the Fukushima, Japan, nuclear plant that was damaged in the March 2011. The fish were caught in August 2011 as they migrated east 6,000 miles from their spawning grounds in Japan in search of prey.

In that piece I talked about how, perhaps counter-intuitively, the radiation—which scientists say do not harm the fish—could actually be a good thing for the fish population. Bluefin, found in the Atlantic and northern and southern Pacific, are among the most prized table fish in the world (a single 489-pound fish fetched $1.76 million at a Tokyo fish auction last month). Because of that, their stocks have plummeted to dangerously low levels. Scientists assert that the radiation levels found in these tuna are not high enough to harm humans. But it is safe to say that the general dining public does not like to hear about radiation in their food.

Last week one of the authors of the study from last year, Daniel J. Madigan from Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station—along with five other scientists— published a new follow-up study. The main question that this new study wanted to answer: Would the migratory Bluefin tuna show up again a year later off the coast of California carrying radiation from Fukushima?

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This article was posted: Thursday, February 21, 2013 at 11:46 am

Tags: science, technology

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