"The fishermen have never seen anything like this..." Gulf seafood deformities alarm scientists

Gulf seafood deformities alarm scientists

It's almost two years since BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Now, scientists say they have found deformities among seafood and a great decline in the numbers of marine life. Dahr Jamail reports from New Orleans.

...

Eyeless shrimp

Tracy Kuhns and her husband Mike Roberts, commercial fishers from Barataria, Louisiana, are finding eyeless shrimp.

"At the height of the last white shrimp season, in September, one of our friends caught 400 pounds of these," Kuhns told Al Jazeera while showing a sample of the eyeless shrimp.

"Some shrimpers are catching these out in the open Gulf [of Mexico]," she added, "They are also catching them in Alabama and Mississippi. We are also finding eyeless crabs, crabs with their shells soft instead of hard, full grown crabs that are one-fifth their normal size, clawless crabs, and crabs with shells that don't have their usual spikes … they look like they've been burned off by chemicals."

...

Keath Ladner, a third generation seafood processor in Hancock County, Mississippi, is also disturbed by what he is seeing.

"I've seen the brown shrimp catch drop by two-thirds, and so far the white shrimp have been wiped out," Ladner told Al Jazeera. "The shrimp are immune compromised. We are finding shrimp with tumors on their heads, and are seeing this everyday."

While on a shrimp boat in Mobile Bay with Sidney Schwartz, the fourth-generation fisherman said that he had seen shrimp with defects on their gills, and "their shells missing around their gills and head".

"We've fished here all our lives and have never seen anything like this," he added.

...

"We also seeing eyeless fish, and fish lacking even eye-sockets, and fish with lesions, fish without covers over their gills, and others with large pink masses hanging off their eyes and gills."

Rooks, who grew up fishing with her parents, said she had never seen such things in these waters, and her seafood catch last year was "ten per cent what it normally is".

The article reminds us of this fact:

[T]he Gulf of Mexico provides more than 40 per cent of all the seafood caught in the continental US...

It still amazes me how little attention this seems to get. For much of the American public, it's business as usual. Nom... Nom...

I think you'd have to be nuts to still consider eating Gulf seafood.

Of course, it isn't entirely the public's fault. Here is what the government is saying:

"Gulf seafood has consistently tested lower than the safety thresholds established by the FDA for the levels of oil and dispersant contamination that would pose a risk to human health," the statement reads. "Louisiana seafood continues to go through extensive testing to ensure that seafood is safe for human consumption. More than 3,000 composite samples of seafood, sediment and water have been tested in Louisiana since the start of the spill."

Yeah, right.

And of course, never mind the evidence of how it affects the fish!

If I have to choose between what the generational fisherman have to say...or the distant bureaucrats in Washington...I know which group I'm listening to. What about you?

Read the rest of the article. It's worth it in my opinion.

Then compare to this ridiculous dribble from the AP:



No wonder the public thinks there's no problem.

I don't know what is worse. The deformities or the government denial?

Originally posted by proob4
I don't know what is worse. The deformities or the government denial?

.. The peoples lack of motivation..

I think it's very spooky you can pull up 400 pounds of deformed shrimp in one catch!

it's okay, just eat it, you'll be fine.

wouldn't want to panic the public and all, i mean isn't that job one these days for the govt, not to panic the people.
seems letting us be exposed to pollution and radiation with a slow kill, is a better option for them.

I certainly wouldn't eat anything out of Mobile Bay or surrounding areas with or without the deepwater incident. Mobile Bay is a nasty, nasty body of water.

...And yes I do live in Mobile.

Oh and by the way, what the hell is Al Jazeera doing reporting in New Orleans? Maybe I don't understand that news organization's affiliation with the U.S. ... but I thought they were centralized in the middle east.

what are you people whining about?

at least the corexit made sure the oil sank to the bottom and made sure BP doesn't ahve to pay for all these damages.

what's a little food compared to a gaint coorporation and their multi-million dollar profits?

all is cool

just have some of these eyeless shrimps with your aspartame laced coke and go back to sleep.

/end sarcasm

/begin venting



don't even know what to say except for AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH....

get me off this freaking planet.

scotty it's about friggin time you beam me up, NOW!

what happens to the 'spoiled' or 'deformed' critters that are caught? are the fishermen throwing them back, segregating the catch and/or adding this part of the catch for the yummy mushy things covered in breadcrumbs?

i read many reports about the corexit, trawled the web for information regarding a suspected 'organic' component in one of the used dispersants and even e-mailed a number of fisherman along the coast for their opinion on this during the leak. it seemed at the time that any researchers of prominent standing were being hired by the oil companies,google pages were being flooded with useless crap and cul-de-sacs in order to hinder any genuine research. my opinion of course after spending several days looking into it.

never got to find out how many of the clean-up crew suffered health problems after exposure to the corexit and oil, although some reports were that human internal passageways were seriously affected.

off topic but after watching the first new deadliest catch, the quota being reduced by 50% perked my interest. is this simply depleted stocks of king crab or is something else behind this?

regards fakedirt.

op for the input.

and once its in the food chain it will rise up to us.

I am sorry, did you think they sprayed all that corexit to get rid of the oil, wake up

The Massive hideous Corexit dump was an attack on our food chain. This was done on purpose and if you dont believe that you need your head examined, because you have probably eaten too much of it.

reply to post by loam


SnF OP, for the update. Many members on the ATS interwebs felt the effects of the oil and Nalco Holding Co.'s Corexit (UK) banned dispersants was going to cause this type of degrading of the sea life within the Gulf of Mexico along with sea current disruption that would effect the weather. It is upsetting that in the video presentation from Aljazeera the situation seems to be ignored somewhat. This is sad because many people of the Americanaz land mass assume these foods are OK to eat because the regulators are ok ing the capture and consumption of these sea creatures. Thing is the OK ing may be based off of the financial gain related to G.O.M sea food distribution and somebody somewhere does not want that money STOPPED, so the end result is people of the Americanaz may be consuming food not safe for their genetic progression. Not to mention the radioactive sea foods being captured and consumed from the PACIFIC where Fukushima incident has basically done similar if not more degrading of the sea life taken from that region. ITS TIME TO WAKE UP TO THE FACT THAT MONEY$$$ IS MORE IMPORTANT TO MAKE, THEN THE HEALTH OF THOSE CONSUMING THESE SEA LIFE PRODUCTS. Once more of those consuming these sea life products wake up they MAY get the regulators to do more about this issue...

Petroleum would not cause genetic deformities like these; oil is a natural product and species have adapted somewhat to it's presence in the environment. It's effects tend to be immediate such as choking fish by covering their gills or killing an animal by ingestion. It does not create eyeless shrimp or lesions on fish.

The only other known factor at play is Corexit which is known to cause genetic damage and is listed as one of the most toxic substances by the EPA in their chemical workers handbook.
Forces are at work to create a world where only Corporations are capable of supplying the world it's food -and life. Destroying ocean life is an easy way to create a greater need for bio-engineered crops and livestock in a place where few people go and even less can seen or tested.

Something on the order of 40% of all the world's protein is supplied by seafood. The Gulf of Mexico is a toxic mess and the effects of Fukushima are not even being speculated upon yet. Indeed, the crisis there may yet worsen if the years of spent fuel rods become endangered.

2 events of such magnitude happening within a year of each other seems well, fishy to my conspiratorial side. People who have no problem ordering bombs dropped on civilian populations would also have little compunction in my opinion in allowing or even ordering such catastrophes to occur. Life is all about profits now, isn't it?

ETA - Ophiuchus; interesting that we reached similar conclusions as I was typing my post before yours appeared on the thread. S&F for you Loam. Good info, Thanks

But . . but I thought the obama administration said the gulf was safe now Seriously, who here is surprised by this? All the junk they pumped into the Gulf just to keep the oil from showing on the surface, I'm actually surprised there is life (if you want to call deformed shrimp life) in the Gulf. Maybe obama could sample shrimp from a fresh catch right from the boat just to show us how safe it really is.

I do, actually. Unfortunately Peter's reaction is indicative of the feelings of many Americans, who counter any science or distrurbing trends with, "we're all going to die anyway."

Originally posted by iamhobo
I certainly wouldn't eat anything out of Mobile Bay or surrounding areas with or without the deepwater incident. Mobile Bay is a nasty, nasty body of water.

...And yes I do live in Mobile.

Oh and by the way, what the hell is Al Jazeera doing reporting in New Orleans? Maybe I don't understand that news organization's affiliation with the U.S. ... but I thought they were centralized in the middle east.

edit on 18-4-2012 by iamhobo because: (no reason given)

Haven't you been paying attention? Hillary Clinton Says "Al Jazeera is putting American media to shame" calls it "real news". I understand she is also fond of Chinese and Russian state TV as she says this "The Chinese have opened up a global English language and multi-language television network, the Russians have opened up an English language network. I've seen it in a couple of countries and it's quite instructive."

BTW, I wouldn't eat any of it either.

"Gulf seafood has consistently tested lower than the safety thresholds established by the FDA for the levels of oil and dispersant contamination that would pose a risk to human health," the statement reads. "Louisiana seafood continues to go through extensive testing to ensure that seafood is safe for human consumption. More than 3,000 composite samples of seafood, sediment and water have been tested in Louisiana since the start of the spill."

Does anyone remember people coming on the news, and talking about "sniffing" the seafood for oil?
Are they now saying they had a proper way of testing?

I also remember them saying they didn't have a way to test for corexit - did they find a proper way for that also?

I'd like to know what type of extensive testing they're doing. Aside from sniffing it.

I don't know why they would be the least bit surprised about these findings, everyone could visibly see how bad the contamination was...

This is disturbing and sickening, but not surprising. When the EPA told BP to stop dumping corexit, BP said no, and continued to do it. The EPA sat on its hands and let them.

Proof positive that these alphabet agencies are owned by private corporations, and do nothing for the benefit of the people who pay for their existence.

The other day my husband and I went to a local restaurant. They had a special on rib eye steak and shrimp. My husband asked the restaurant owner where the shrimp came from. The guy just shrugged his shoulders and said he didn't know. I refused to order the shrimp because we're in Texas, and I figure any shrimp we get is Gulf shrimp.

My husband ate the shrimp. I showed him this thread and now he is freaked out. He's imagining that he ate eyeless shrimp with tumors and lesions, nicely breaded up and deep fried.

reply to post by FissionSurplus


I'm nearly a pescatarian, so you can imagine how hard it is to eat that way when farm raised presents it's own problems.

Pisses me off how poorly available the information is when it comes to dietary choices.

reply to post by loam


The thing is, the owner of the restaurant COULD have gone into his freezer and let us know the origin of the shrimp, which I'm sure he gets in bags already frozen. I think he knew that we wouldn't order the shrimp if he admitted it was Gulf shrimp so he played dumb.

This is a small town, and it was a small restaurant. The shrimp was on special and I think he needed to get rid of his inventory.

Fried, breaded shrimp used to be my favorite thing to order when we go out to eat, but I haven't eaten shrimp since the BP oil spill two years ago. I don't want any Pacific fish either. I wish I had a Geiger counter so I could measure the tuna when I open the can.

Nothing appears to be safe to eat anymore, unless you grow it yourself. What a sick, sad world this has become.

No worries!

Ya'll come on down!

after reading this and seeing the Video, I have come to the conclusion that the only food that we will be able to eat is GMO, Corporate funded, chemical injected... Soy lent blue, to be on the store shelves soon.