Is Fukushima Radiation Contaminating Tuna, Salmon & Herring On the West Coast of North America?

George Washington Blog

We’ve extensively documented that radioactivity from Fukushima is spreading to North America.

More than a year ago, 15 out of 15 bluefin tuna tested in California waters were contaminated with radioactive cesium from Fukushima.

Bluefin tuna are a wide-ranging fish, which can swim back and forth between Japan and North America in a year:

But what about other types of fish?

Sockeye salmon also have a range spanning all of the way from Japan to Alaska, Canada, Washington and Oregon:

Associated Press reports that both scientists and native elders in British Columbia say that sockeye numbers have plummeted:

 

Sockeye salmon returns plunge to historic lows.

 

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Last month, [the Department of Fisheries and Oceans] noted returns for the Skeena River sockeye run were dire.

[Mel Kotyk, North Coast area director for the Department] said department scientists don’t know why the return numbers are so low…. “When they went out to sea they seemed to be very strong and healthy and in good numbers, so we think something happened in the ocean.”

 

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“We’ve never seen anything like this in all these years I’ve done this. I’ve asked the elders and they have never seen anything like this at all.” [said Chief Wilf Adam]

Vancouver News 1130 notes that Alaskan and Russian salmon stocks have crashed as well:

 

 

“The sockeye runs way up north in the Skeena are low. The [fish] out of Bristol Bay, Alaska is down 30 to 35 per cent over last year. Russia has got a limited number of fish in the market. They are down about 40 per cent over all their salmon fisheries.”

(Russia’s East Coast sits on the Sea of Japan.  Indeed, Japan is closer to Russia than to Korea.)

Alaska’s Juneau Empire newspaper writes:

We are concerned this hazardous material is hitching a ride on marine life and making its way to Alaska.

Currents of the world’s oceans are complex. But, generally speaking, two surface currents — one from the south, called the Kuroshio, and one from the north, called the Oyashio — meet just off the coast of Japan at about 40 degrees north latitude. The currents merge to form the North Pacific current and surge eastward. Fukushima lies at 37 degrees north latitude. Thousands of miles later, the currents hit an upwelling just off the western coast of the United States and split. One, the Alaska current, turns north up the coast toward British Columbia and Southeast Alaska. The other, the California current, turns south and heads down the western seaboard of the U.S.

continue article at ZeroHedge:

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-08-26/fukushima-radiation-contaminating-tuna-salmon-and-herring-west-coast-north-am