Bluefin Tuna Caught Near California Still Radioactive Years After Fukushima

Huffington Post – by Joe Satran

Bluefin tuna just can’t catch a break. Weeks after it was reported that overfishing had reduced the Pacific population of the fish, which is popular in sushi bars, by over 96 percent, researchers have found trace levels of radiation still lingering in their flesh almost two years after the catastrophe at the nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan. And the tuna they studied were caught off the coast of California, 6000 miles east of Japan. Monte Burke at Forbes writes:

The main question that this new study wanted to answer: Would the migratory Bluefin tuna show up again a year later off the coast of California carrying radiation from Fukushima?The answer was yes. […] That means, ultimately, that there is still a high level of radiation in the waters near the Fukushima plant most likely because, as marine chemist, Ken Buessler, asserts, the plant is still leaking radiation into the ocean nearly two years later.

One of the chief authors of the study also did work showing that tuna were radioactive back in spring of 2012. Yikes. Scientists emphasized that the levels of radiation found in the tuna pose little threat to human health — as they did when radioactive tuna were found soon after the Fukushima accident. On the other hand, if you needed even more of a reason to avoid bluefin tuna, let this be it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/21/bluefin-tuna-radiation_n_2736221.html