how polluted are sturgeon?

[dampainter]

just curious, how much sturgeon do you all eat, I`ve never had a chance to eat any yet, hope that will change soon. I have talked to a few who said thay would never eat a sturgeon due to all the pollutants...pcbs,fertilizers etc...that resident fish live in.

[steelheader667]

Well I think you have to take the good with the bad on this one. Yes there probably are some that are very bad for you out there but I would amagine that the ammount that are in the average fish is not enough to hurt you. I think that you would have to eat a sustancual ammount before it really can hurt you. Also you have to look at the other side of the food chain that we as people eat. Beef. You then have to look at what they are eating and mad cow disease.

[Tacklebuster]

I eat sturgeon twice a week and have been doing so for about six years. I try and be selective of the fish I take and try and only take the ones in the estuary. If I take an upriver fish most of the time the fish will have to be in good shape (ie white belly, not yellow, bright, sharper scutes, and fat).

The most important thing to do is trim ALL the red and yellow fat off of the meat. Have nothing but WHITE fillets left. Put your fillets in the fridge for about two days and make sure once a day you pull the fillets out, pat them dry, and put them back into a fresh dry container before it goes back in the ice box. I would also suggest soaking them for an additional ten or twelve hours in milk before you eat them.

Most of all the bad stuff you will find in sturgeon is trapped in the fatty stuff that you remove. Sturgeon can be the best fish you have ever eaten or the worst, it's all up to how you take care of the fish once it's in the boat.

[HOGTIDE]

Dude...just look at the dang things. Black skin, swollen lips, spikey back. It's the devil with fins...YUK :tongue: there's gotta be something wrong inside

[Chromaflage]

I have yet to see a meaningful toxicological study on sturgeon meat (maybe someone here can provide). However, I have learned that a lot of the contaminants of concern tend to be lipophilic (fat loving)and, therefore, stored in the fat. Like humans, animals have the capability to metabolize and excrete contaminants. A couple of issues here are:

1. Has the fish been exposed to doses of contaminants that exceed its capacity to metabolize and excrete them?
2. If it has, where are the contaminants stored in the fish? Certain contaminants have an affinity to certain target organs, such as liver, kidneys, pancreas, stomach, skin, fat cells etc. Some others may have an affinity for the muscle tissue, but most do not. PCBs are lipophilic and will likely be stored in the fatty tissue. That's why it's important to cut away as much of the fat as possible.

I'm am not an aquatic biologist or aquatic toxicologist, but this is how I understand it, in very general terms.

With respect to humans, keep in mind that "the dose makes the poison," meaning that our bodies can tolerate a certain amount of contaminants before we start experiencing adverse health effects. These health effects come in two flavors - acute (short term, almost immediate, usually reversible due to high doses over a short amount of time) and chronic (long term, sometimes reversible, due to smaller doses over long period of time).

Bottom line - moderation and varied diet is the key. There are contaminants in nearly all food we eat. And, as I've said before, I've never heard of anyone dying from a sturgeon overdose.

My .02 plus tax. :grin:

ORS

[starcrafttom]

Oregon redside is right on track. I did a little reading about the contaminates in fish and the test that you see quoted in the papers all the time. What I found out was that the test for pollutions in fish requires that the testers grind up the whole fish. Guts scales brains fin the whole thing. As redside pointed out most of the pollution is in the organs not the meat that is why they test the whole thing The government use to test just the fillets and when they low numbers groups like elf and Alf and the sierra club sued the government to get the test changed to meet their needs. So they can get the results they want and scare people into not eating fish. The Seattle paper had a article about farm raised fish and the story was very misleading. It was about he number of pbc in farmed fish being double what it is in wild fish. Well the number of pbc’s was only one millionth the harmful amount but yes wild fish where half that. Are farmed fish bad to eat? No.

[Hogback]

I did a report for a biology class about Hanford and was surprised at the amount of pollution still being dumped into the river. I did love to eat sturgeon until then, but I still eat beef and pork so its just a personal thing. If you are going to eat it at least read about the potential health hazards involved just to be safe.
Randy

[STGRule]

It appears that contaminants are lower in sturgeon below the dams than above.

An excerpt from here is a compilation of muscle tissue only samples.

Lower Columbia River (McNary Dam to the Estuary)
Downstream of McNary Dam, reduced concentrations of dioxins and furans compared to the middle and upper Columbia River were found in fish muscle (Beak Consultants Inc., 1989; Serdar et al., 1991), though dioxin concentrations found in white sturgeon fillets and muscle from fish caught in Bonneville Reservoir were 1.09 ppt (Serdar et al., 1991) and non-detectable to 2.10 ppt in muscle (Beak Consultants Inc., 1989). Concentrations of dioxins and furans in fish muscle in the unimpounded section of the Columbia River were low to non-detectable (Beak Consultants Inc., 1989; Serdar et al., 1991), with dioxin concentrations in white sturgeon fillets found to be 0.09-0.12 ppt (Keenan et al., 1990) and non-detectable to 0.24 ppt in muscle (Beak Consultants Inc., 1989). Chlorinated pesticide and PCB concentrations in immature white sturgeon livers in the lower Columbia River were shown in the proposal (Figure 2). The concentrations of contaminants in immature white sturgeon gonad tissue collected in 2000 and 2001 in our study from the estuary to John Day Reservoir were as follows: 0.02- 7.42 ppm DDE, 0.02-9.06 ppm total pesticides, and 0.00-0.79 ppm PCBs (White Sturgeon Contaminant & Reproductive Physiology Research Group, unpublished). Bosley and Gately (1991) reported concentrations of PCBs and pesticides in white sturgeon eggs for one female below Bonneville Reservoir (0.16 ppm PCBs, 0.07 ppm DDE) and one female in Bonneville Reservoir (1.45 ppm PCBs, 1.75 ppm DDE).


It also appears that it is far more damaging to the sturgeon resources than to us at this point.

Gonadal damage

[GOT2FISH]

Tacklebuster I have heard about the soaking in Milk before can you tell me what that does. Just courious.

[steel_beaver]

I wouldn't eat willamete sturgeon, but i think everything else is the ok.... if i have doubts i use my rule of thunb "if it glows, don't eat it" :shocked: :shocked:
but when i think about it even willamete sturgeon will be safer than the meat we buy at stores... i mean, cows that eat meat can't be that healthy either

[ 02-25-2004, 02:13 PM: Message edited by: steel_beaver ]

[Abalone]

Is it safe to eat Downer Sturgeon ?

That's Sturgeon that can't swim with their own fins.

Mad Sturgeon are fun to catch but are they good to eat ?

[ 02-25-2004, 01:59 PM: Message edited by: Abalone ]

[Kentucky Hog Hunter]

ORS (Kerry) sounds like some of your business expertise is going a long way to explain things in simple terms here... Very Nice...

Cronic vs. Acute, Moderation of intake...

I think sturgeon if it is prepared correctly (Removeing all the fat & red) is not only good tasteing, but is just plain good for you...I would put its safety up against any piece of meat I have ever eaten...The chances of you going to Wendy's or Jack in the Crack and getting a bad piece of meat far outweighs the sturgeon I prepare for my family.

TB...I will soak my sturgeon for a minimal of 2 days in whole milk before I prepare it for the table...I have found the longer you soak it the better the outcome...

Mmmm, sounds like I need to prepare some deep fried gator....

[LuckySteelhead]

I don't sturgion fish anymore, but when I did I found the Lower Willamete fish better tasting and healthier looking and better color then the upper Columbia fish (near and above the dams). When I say lower willamtte, I mean below the st. johns bridge.

[dampainter]

Thanks for the replies...does the meat vacuum pack and freeze well?

[Boatdog]

Mine does! :tongue:

[blacktail519]

Tackle Buster,
Your right about the soaking in milk theory. I soak all of my Bass fillets that i catch down my way, and lord have mercy does it make a huge difference in the quality of the fish, when cooked!! I have never done this with my sturgeon, and may have to give it a shot..... Thanks for your input>>>>

[FishFood]

another good book related to this subject is "Saviors of the Earth?" by Michael S. Coffman.

Thanks! I'll check it out.

Steve

[Tacklebuster]

Milk helps to draw the strong or fishy taste out of it. We did it back in Alabama for catfish to help get most of the "muddy" taste out of the fillets.

I don't really have the scientific answer you need but if you eat a piece that is soaked verses a piece that is not, you will know the difference.

[Chromaflage]

The milk has fatty acids in it that help dissolve and leach out fat cells from the meat. It also helps to tenderize the fillets, because it denatures some of the proteins in the muscle.

ORS

[ 02-25-2004, 12:30 PM: Message edited by: OregonRedside ]

[FishFood]

"Well the number of pbc’s was only one millionth the harmful amount but yes wild fish where half that. Are farmed fish bad to eat? No."

So glad to see someone post this. Environmentalists are notorious (not all, but many) for what could be called chain rounding that yields ridiculous results. One scientist makes a shaky analysis and pronounces a figure. Someone else picks it up and rounds the figure up, then does another analysis using that rounded figure which someone else uses and so on until you reach the appropriate sky is falling figure. The same is done with comparative numbers (farm raised fish are twice as poisonous--oh my God!) The media loves to pick up on this because scaring you is good for their numbers. A lack of threat is boring. You could call it the media-chicken little complex (like the military-industrial complex).

There's a great book called "The Skeptical Environmentalist" by a former Green Peace member who went over all the exact figures produced by official international organizations (WHO, etc). He concluded that, for instance, you will get more toxins by eating a few basil leaves (many vegetables contain natural toxins) than you will get through the sum total of all man-made toxins (pesticides PCBs etc) consumed in a year.

So, I'm not worried about eating sturgeon.

Bon appetit!

Steve

[Chromaflage]

scormier - another good book related to this subject is "Saviors of the Earth?" by Michael S. Coffman.

ORS