It’s family fishing weekend in Ontario, and Environmental Defence wants you to enjoy yourself, but be aware of what you are eating.
Program Manager Mike Layton tells Bayshore Broadcasting News, the levels of toxic chemicals in Great Lakes fish are alarmingly high, and are not improving.
Layton says “Fish are still a great choice for our diets, but we need to make sure we are not exposing ourselves to high levels of harmful chemicals.”
The Environmental Defence report, analyzes the latest fish advisories published by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment for eight species of fish in 13 locations across the Great Lakes.
Layton says many categories of fish were found to be somewhat or completely unfit for human consumption.
Major chemical contaminants include mercury, PCBs, pesticides, and dioxins.
The good news is that there have been improvements in the level of contamination found in Lake Huron and Georgian Bay fish — while Lake Ontario is the worst.
Layton says enjoy yourself whether it is on family fishing weekend or the Chantry Chinook Derby and catch that big fish.
He says just don’t eat a lot of Great lakes fish and the smaller the fish the less concern there is.
Almost 400 thousand Canadian anglers fish the Great Lakes every year
The commercial and sport fishing industries are estimated to be worth 2.45
billion dollars a year.
