Eat the fish?

[Cangl]

Well people, conservationists and anglers does anybody have the right to question the right of an american angler to eat our fish? Sportfish or else. Through the years I have been confronted with that question. Do you really eat the fish with all the toxins and all? This asked me by all walks of life people. To me it's the most absolutely ignorant question one self reliant individual can ask! Those fish and waters are yours also where have you been? Eat fish h##l? We should be able to drink the water! So with all your answers, why is it we can not? If you think by ignoring a resource, and the rights of others it is right and safe, well guess again you are being robbed.
Our waters are only as valuable as the way there being used, which sounds better? Garden or dump? Sportfisherman are and will always be the canaries in the cave. Please help us. Amen

[Gord]

Worry instead about the contents of things like margarine and weiners. What additives and hormones are being force fed to cattle, pigs, chickens etc.? A few meals of fish now and again is no big deal, even if they do come from less than pristeen waters. If your fillets glow in the dark, drink 6 beer as an antidote. It won't matter 100 yrs. from now. RELAX. ENJOY !!!!

[EricCO]

I had a lady on the dock at Cherry Creek ask me if I was going to eat a big slab crappie I caught there this spring. She frowned and made a puking sound and commented on how polluted the reservoir was.

She said and did all this the whole while we both were smoking cigs!

[CJHughes]

That is funny ,when I was young we use to say, anyone can quit but it takes a man to face lung cancer . I have eaten Fish out of the pristine clean Ohio River for years .I do think the beef and pork you buy at the super market is worst than the fish.

[Tough Guy]

Eat the fish....Tough Guy eat alot of fish. Toxins in fish. Toxins in vegetables. Toxins in other animals. Toxins in everything. Everyone going to die sometime. Tough Guy recommend making peace with mighty creator for eternal fishing trip. Eat the toxin fish....who cares. Tough Guy out.

[vetspet(ind)]

several yrs ago the national wildlife federation printed an article stating no fish in lake michigan were safe to eat...they based their article on studies done by the michigan and wisconsin dnr's own study...they submitted their article to both state toxicologists who stated that they could not say what they said from the dnr studies...they said it anyhow and got much publicity which hurt the local charters very much ....rebuttals were made in our local paper and outdoor life but got very little publicity...i had the outdoor life article for yrs and lost it...basically the article stated that each yr the dnr sets levels which are considered safe and levels which are considered toxic...if 10 parts per million (ppm) is considered the top end of "safe"...the dnr sets its safe level at half that or 5ppm... this is being on the conservative side for safety sake...the next thing the dnr does is they chop...grind up the entire fish including skin...liver...kidney and fat...most toxins will be found in fat and detox organs like kidney and liver which you will not likely be eating....so there are two factors which go a long way to insure you are not consuming much in the way of toxins....they also stated that no fish in lake michigan were safe to eat and perch were being harvested commercially at the time...i believe at the time the only perch that were on the list were in green bay..i may be wrong on that fact but i think that is correct...steelhead were not on the list at the time nor were spring coho...brown trout ....lakers and fall run coho and kings were on the list...steve...if anyone has the outdoors article i would love to see it again...i wrote outdoor life and they did not have computerized research back then and could not find the article...i went to the library and went thru years of outdoor life issues and could not find the article but its there someplace...steve

[cisco]

Jerry Gibbs is the author of the Outdoor Life article from 1989 or 90. Just as good info can be obtained from UW-Sea Grant in Milwaukee or UW-Sea Grant at Ohio State University. The director of Ohio Sea Grant will tell you that if you don't want Great Lakes fish, give them to him. He eats them.

Michigan State University has done research on fish consumption for 30 years. They conclude that health benefits far exceed any potential risk from heavy metals (PCBs and such).

The NWF used risk assessment procedures to produce their gloom and doom report. They TESTED NO fish. Theirs was a statistical analysis process too lengthy to discuss here. In short, risk assessment deals with a bell-curve analysis of sorts -- high risk on one side, low risk on the other. The folly of this is that the very same data can produce exact opposite results.

When NWF issued their report, the trigger level was 5 parts per million. When tested now, the level used is .05 per million. As one of the Wisconsin researchers told me, the big difference today is that we are able to turn up the microscope. We can measure smaller amounts. Bottom line -- the fish are cleaner today than in 1989 when NWF published their ill-advised report.
It was published to scare people into cleaning up the environment. It was an "ends justify the means" approach to social problems. (This whole thing was social, not scientific.)

[vetspet(ind)]

thanks for the info...i have looked everywhere for that article...i knew they did not even run their own tests...always wondered what was their angle...heard that the national wildlife federation was originally outdoorsmen friendly and got taken over by enviro people....sounds like that is what you are saying...i will look again for that article...steve

[Hunter]

NWF is now tree huggers? Guess I have to dispose of a couple shirts with theyre logo on it. Shame, I liked the shirts, but I will not support or promote a bunch of tree huggers, we as sportsmen have enough problems. By the way I eat those tasty toxin filled Detroit river walleye/perch, I havent grown a third arm yet.

[cisco]

Incidentally, there are NO consumption advisories for commercial fish. I guess there is something inherently cleansing about commercial enterprise which enables supermarkets and other outlets to avoid posting consumption advisories.

I have no problem with the ultimate goal of clean air and clean water -- free of industrial wastes, but cannot subscribe to the scare tactics (based on NO actual evidence of cancer) used by the NWF. In a meeting in Cleveland on Great Lakes fish consumption advisories, I asked the head M.D. of a midwestern state (Health Dept) if he could name even one victim of cancer caused by contaminated fish -- he said, "that's not the issue." To which I said, "If that's not the issue, then why are we all here?"

Do your own math. Risk assessment advocates claim that people living in the Great Lakes watershed eat twice as much fish as those who live elsewhere. Further, they claim that anglers in the same region eat four times as much fish as folks living elsewhere. OK, then frequency of cancer should be twice as high among those living in the watershed, and four times as high for anglers in the region. When I posed this to the conferees, I was told, "We don't calculate it that way?"

This thing has been beat to death in many circles, but it's still an important debate. To be fair, we should point out that risk assessment calculations produce a much higher level of danger in eating peanut butter than in eating Great Lakes fish. Remember, too, that table salt can be a toxin.

[Cangl]

About the cat litter box? On the south end of the lake it is.

[MacD]

Those tree huggers you talk about are responsible for cleaning up places like Erie (and hundreds of others) and allowing it to be the fishery it is today.

As far as I am concerned the water cant be clean enough. To think any other way is pure ignorance. The fact we even have consumption warnings is BS. We should be able to eat fish every day without any health concerns. Period.

[Hunter]

I like clean air /water too, dont get me wrong. I have a bad experience with "enviro people", I know for a fact they want to take away my hunting and fishing PRIVELEDGES. I will fight until I am dead to ensure myself/ friends and anyone else are allowed to enjoy these activties.