Oil spilled in Gulf of Mexico causes heart problems in developing tuna
Oil spilled in Gulf of Mexico causes heart problems in developing tuna
Louis Sahagun
3:30 p.m. CDT, March 24, 2014
There’s more bad news about the effects of oil spills on warm-water predators, including Atlantic bluefin tuna, already one of the most threatened fish in the seas.
Oil spills such as the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico may cause serious heart defects in developing fish embryos, according to a study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that was published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The release of more than 4 million barrels of oil between April and July 2010 coincided with the spawning window for commercially and ecologically important species such as bluefin and yellowfin tunas, mahi mahi, Spanish mackerels and blue marlin.
Much of that oil rose from the wellhead on the ocean floor to the surface, potentially exposing buoyant and rapidly developing fish embryos and larvae to toxic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs.
More:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/la-sci-sn-tuna-larvae-oil-spill-toxins-20140324,0,3215972.story
