Record Tuna Breaks Toxicity Record

DEWEY BEACH, Del. (AP) - When fisherman Dan Dillon landed an 873-pound bluefin tuna in July, he brought in more than a record-breaking fish. His catch also broke a record for toxicity.

Mercury levels in the fish were 2½ times higher than the threshold the Food and Drug Administration sets for commercial fish before it takes action to remove it from the market, according to Oceana, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the world's oceans.

The mercury also was nearly twice the highest level of mercury ever found by the FDA in fresh or frozen tuna steaks, Oceana said. A sample from the fish was tested at ACZ Laboratories in Steamboat Springs, Colo., said Jackie Savitz, director of Oceana's seafood contamination campaign. Dillon donated the sample for testing.

The angler from Herndon, Va., caught the bluefin 40 miles off the southern Delaware coast, state wildlife officials said. It was 9½ feet long, had a girth of 6½ feet and exceeded Delaware's previous record tuna by more than 500 pounds. It took Dillon more than 1½ hours to subdue the big fish and another two hours to haul it into the boat.

Dillon said officials warned him that mercury could be a problem in a fish that large, so he and his family limited how much they ate. Bluefin tuna are at the top of the food chain and toxins such as mercury can accumulate from the smaller fish they eat.

Atlantic bluefin tuna spawn off the Gulf of Mexico and travel throughout the Atlantic Ocean, Kim Warner, a marine pollution scientist with Oceana said. The high level of mercury found in Dillon's fish means it was probably older fish, Warner said.

Dillon's donation of a frozen tuna filet from his catch for testing helped raise awareness of mercury contamination in big fish, Savitz said.

"Recreational anglers are on the front lines when it comes to mercury contamination since mercury can occur at very high levels in the fish they catch and eat," he said.

(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)