Public Health Advisories on Fish Consumption

General Information

Sport fish may present a health hazard when eaten due to natural and industrial chemicals in their flesh, especially when they are consumed often over a long time. Although the chemical levels found in sport fish are usually low, harmful levels do occur in some locations. The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) provides specific consumption advice, as given below, for fish taken in areas where high levels of chemicals have been found. However, because contamination levels are unknown for many locations, OEHHA also provides the following general advice on how to reduce your exposure to chemicals in sport fish.

These advisories are not intended to discourage you from eating fish. Fish are nutritious and an excellent source of low-fat protein. The advisories should be followed to make your sport fish eating safer.

OEHHA can provide more information on the advisories as well as an illustrated brochure giving general advice. The brochure is available in several languages. If you have any questions, please contact the Pesticide and Environmental Toxicology Section (PETS) in Sacramento at (916) 327-7319 or in Berkeley at (510) 540- 3063, or write to PETS, 2151 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, CA 94704-1011.

You can reduce your exposure to chemical contaminants in sport fish by following the recommendations below. Follow as many of them as you can to increase your health protection. This general advice is not meant to take the place of advisories for specific areas, which follow later.

Fishing Practices: Catch fish in a variety of locations rather than in one customary location. This way you will spread your fishing effort around and reduce the chance of catching contaminated fish.

Consumption Guidelines

Fish Species: Some fish species have higher chemical levels than others in the same location. It is often better to consume smaller amounts of several different species of fish rather than a large amount of one species that may be high in contaminants.

Fish Size: Smaller fish of a species will usually have lower chemical levels than larger fish in the same location because some of the chemicals may become more concentrated in larger, older fish. It is advisable to eat smaller fish (of legal size) rather than larger fish.

Fish Preparation and Consumption: Eat only the fillet portions. Do not eat the guts and liver because chemicals usually concentrate in those parts. Make stews and soups with cleaned (gut removed) fish. Many chemicals are stored in the fat. To reduce the levels of these chemicals, skin the fish when possible and trim any visible fat.

Also, use a cooking method such as baking, broiling, grilling or steaming that allows the juices to drain away from the fish. The juices will contain chemicals in the fat and should be thrown away. Preparing and cooking fish in this way can remove 30 to 50 percent of the chemicals stored in fat.

Raw fish may be infested by parasites. Cook fish thoroughly to destroy the parasites. This also helps reduce the level of chemical contaminants.

 

Site-Specific Consumption Recommendations

Important Note

The following principles apply to the specific guidelines that follow:

1. Eating sport fish in amounts slightly greater than what is recommended should not present a health hazard if only done occasionally, such as eating fish caught during an annual vacation.

2. Nursing and pregnant women and young children may be more sensitive to the harmful effects of some of the chemicals and should be particularly careful about following the guidelines.

3. The limits given below for each species and area assume that no other contaminated fish is being eaten. If you consume several different listed species from the same area, or the same species from several areas, your total consumption still should not exceed the recommended amount. One simple approach is to just use the lowest recommended amount as a guideline to consumption.

Tomales Bay Interim Advisory (Marin County)

Elevated levels of mercury have been found in fish from Tomales Bay. The County of Marin Department of Health and Human Services and Community Development Agency/Environmental Health Services Division, in cooperation with the OEHHA, is issuing the following recommendations for limiting consumption of sport fish caught in Tomales Bay:

• Do not eat leopard sharks or brown smoothound sharks.
• Limit consumption of the following fish to no more than:
  One meal per week of surfperch (redtail, shiner surfperch) OR
  Two meals per month of California halibut or Pacific angel shark, OR
  One meal per month of bat rays.
• This advisory does not apply to commercially grown Tomales Bay oysters, clams and mussels, which do not contain high levels of mercury.

It is especially important that women who are pregnant or may become pregnant within a year, nursing mothers, and children under age six follow these guidelines. The nervous systems of the developing fetus and young children are especially sensitive to the toxic effects of methylmercury, the form of mercury that is found in fish.

Ocean and San Francisco Bay District
San Francisco Bay and Delta Region

Because of elevated levels of mercury, PCBs and other chemicals, the following interim advisory has been issued. A final advisory will be issued when the data have been completely evaluated.

Adults should eat no more than two meals per month of San Francisco Bay sport fish, including sturgeon and striped bass caught in the delta. (One meal is about six ounces.)

Adults should not eat any striped bass over 35 inches.

Women who are pregnant or may become pregnant, nursing mothers and children under age 6 should not eat more than one meal of fish per month. In addition, they should not eat any striped bass over 27 inches or any shark over 24 inches.

This advisory does not apply to salmon, anchovies, herring and smelt caught in the Bay; other sport fish caught in the delta or ocean, or commercial fish.

Richmond Harbor Channel area: In addition to the above advice, no one should eat any croakers, surfperches, bullheads, gobies, or shellfish taken within the Richmond Harbor Channel area because of high levels of chemicals detected there.

Southern District
Southern California Locations Between Point Dume and Dana Point

Twenty-four locations in this area of southern California have been tested. No consumption advisories based on chemicals were issued for the following locations: Santa Monica Pier, Venice Pier, Venice Beach, Marine del Rey, Redondo Beach, Emma/Eva oil platforms, Huntington Beach, Laguna Beach, Fourteen Mile Bank, Catalina (Twin Harbor), and Dana Point. Consumption advice for certain species of sport fish was issued for the other locations because of elevated DDT and PCB levels, as listed below. One meal is about six ounces. (See also "Important Note No. 3" above.)

California Coastal Site	Fish Species	Recommendation
Point Dume Malibu	White croaker	Do not consume
Malibu Pier	Queenfish	One meal a month
Short Bank	White croaker	One meal every two weeks
Redondo Pier	Corbina	One meal every two weeks
Point Vicente Palos Verdes - Northwest	White croaker	Do not consume
White's Point	White croaker	Do not consume
	Sculpin	One meal every two weeks*
	Rockfishes	One meal every two weeks*
	Kelp bass	One meal every two weeks*
Los Angeles / Long Beach Harbor (esp. Cabrillo Pier)	White croaker	Do not consume
	Queenfish	One meal every two weeks*
	Black croaker	One meal every two weeks*
	Surfperches	One meal every two weeks*
Los Angeles / Long Beach Breakwater (Ocean side)	White croaker	One meal a month*
	Queenfish	One meal a month*
	Surfperches	One meal a month*
	Black croaker	One meal a month*
Belmont Pier Pier J	Surfperches	One meal every two weeks
Horseshoe Kelp	Sculpin	One meal a month*
Newport Pier	White croaker	One meal a month*
	Corbina	One meal every two weeks
*Consumption recommendation is for all the listed species combined.