Study: Gulf Oil Spill Is Sickening Fish Vital to Seafood Industry
The seafood is safe to eat and the Gulf of Mexico tourism industry is recovering three years after the nation’s worst offshore oil spill spewed more than 200 million gallons of crude oil into the waters off Louisiana. But despite that BP-sponsored commercial message, something appears to be amiss at the bottom of the Gulf’s food chain, according to new research.An otherwise hardy and ubiquitous fish adapted to the shifting conditions of the Gulf of Mexico, the killifish may be signaling a critical weakness in the maritime food chain, according to the researchers.
“It’s a canary in a coal mine; These guys don’t move around much,” said Galvez.
“All of those fish we like to eat, eat the killifish,” said Andrew Whitehead, an environmental toxicologist from UC Davis, and a co-author of the study.
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