Mercury levels in Arctic fish lower than once thought, study shows

Most environmental news these days is bad news but a new study on the mercury levels in fish has offered some hope.

Researchers at Virginia Tech found that mercury in continental Artic fish have lower levels of the toxic substance than once thought.

The multinational group of scientists analyzed burbot fish in the Lena and the Mezen, two rivers in the north of Russia.

Burbot are long-lived, eat other fish, are non-migratory and are found widely in the Arctic region.

They looked at the fish between November and December, which is a peak fishing season.

"The burbot fish was chosen because they are top predators that integrate many bio-geo-chemical processes in the river watersheds," said Leandro Castello, one of the researchers, in a statement.

"The fish were collected downstream of the watersheds, so that they would present everything that happened upstream."

In comparison with similar regions in Canada, Russia had surprisingly lower levels of mercury in fish most of the time – easily safe enough to consume.

As toxic forms of mercury occur from mining and ore processing, researchers anticipated high levels in fish in the region where industrialization took a toll on the environment, particularly during the Soviet Union.

"It turns out that the economic decline of the former Soviet Union, which collapsed in 1991, appears to have been good for the Arctic environment in that part of the world," said Leandro Castello

"More studies are needed in the Russian Arctic if we are to better understand how mercury moves through this type of environment," Castello added.