International Meeting of Scientists Raises Caution Flag On Gulf Seafood
EINNEWS, November 22---Only weeks after two federal agencies gave the green light to Gulf of Mexico seafood as safe to eat, scientists gather in Charleston, S.C., Friday and turned on a blinking yellow "caution" signal.
NOAA, one of the agencies that said its tests had found no contaminants in Gulf seafood, continues to test the waters with its research vessels, and announced earlier this month that it had found dead and dying coral a few miles from where the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling well exploded and sank, triggering the most extensive dumping of oil in U.S. history.
A NOAA official asked EINNEWS to retract a story questioning the safety of Gulf seafood, arguing that no competent scientist had questioned NOAA's findings. But at the Charleston meeting of the International Conference of Shellfish Restoration there was plenty of skepticism about the level of damage up and down the food chain.
Ed Cake, president of Gulf Environmental Associates in Ocean Springs, Miss., told fellow scientists at the meeting, "We have a lot of concern about what is going on down there. They're doing the sniff and taste test. We as human beings no longer have the noses of bloodhounds. I will not eat any seafood coming from the central Gulf at this point."
Eric Schwaab, head of NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service, keynoted the conference. While he didn't back away from his agency's statement about the safety of Gulf seafood, he told Reuters in an interview after his speech:
"The long-term impacts to sensitive habitats and longer-term assessment of impacts on populations of fish, shrimp, crabs, oysters, sea turtles, marine mammals, we're still in the very early stages of understanding."
That became apparent by NOAA's discovery of the dead and dying coral.
Three NOAA research ships are in the Gulf surveying whales and dolphins and the effects of oil and dispersants on the prey species they eat. Researchers also are looking at small fish, such as herring, for an indication of how the food chain is faring. Teams are surveying shrimp, snappers and other species as well, to see how abundant they are.
Research funded by BP also is under way on how the oil affected the base of the food chain, reefs and marshes, sharks, dolphins and many other species.
For more seafood news, visit Seafood News Today (http://seafood.einnews.com), a seafood media monitoring service from EIN News.
NOAA, one of the agencies that said its tests had found no contaminants in Gulf seafood, continues to test the waters with its research vessels, and announced earlier this month that it had found dead and dying coral a few miles from where the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling well exploded and sank, triggering the most extensive dumping of oil in U.S. history.
A NOAA official asked EINNEWS to retract a story questioning the safety of Gulf seafood, arguing that no competent scientist had questioned NOAA's findings. But at the Charleston meeting of the International Conference of Shellfish Restoration there was plenty of skepticism about the level of damage up and down the food chain.
Ed Cake, president of Gulf Environmental Associates in Ocean Springs, Miss., told fellow scientists at the meeting, "We have a lot of concern about what is going on down there. They're doing the sniff and taste test. We as human beings no longer have the noses of bloodhounds. I will not eat any seafood coming from the central Gulf at this point."
Eric Schwaab, head of NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service, keynoted the conference. While he didn't back away from his agency's statement about the safety of Gulf seafood, he told Reuters in an interview after his speech:
"The long-term impacts to sensitive habitats and longer-term assessment of impacts on populations of fish, shrimp, crabs, oysters, sea turtles, marine mammals, we're still in the very early stages of understanding."
That became apparent by NOAA's discovery of the dead and dying coral.
Three NOAA research ships are in the Gulf surveying whales and dolphins and the effects of oil and dispersants on the prey species they eat. Researchers also are looking at small fish, such as herring, for an indication of how the food chain is faring. Teams are surveying shrimp, snappers and other species as well, to see how abundant they are.
Research funded by BP also is under way on how the oil affected the base of the food chain, reefs and marshes, sharks, dolphins and many other species.
For more seafood news, visit Seafood News Today (http://seafood.einnews.com), a seafood media monitoring service from EIN News.
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