A baseline study of metals in herring (Clupea harengus) from the Norwegian Sea, with focus on mercury, cadmium, arsenic and lead

Total Mercury, Methylmercury, Inorganic Arsenic and Other Elements in Meat from Minke Whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) from the North East Atlantic Ocean

“…Haug et al (2002) have found that krill is the dominant prey for minke whales in the northern Barents Sea, whereas young Norwegian spring spawning (NSS) herring is the main food for minke whales from the southern regions of the Barents Sea. This difference in prey items cannot explain, however, the difference in TAs concentration between the area North and East in this study, since krill and NSS-herring typically contain similar low levels of TAs (Edmonds and Francesconi 2003; Frantzen et al 2015; Julshamn et al 2012). …”

“…Typical values for meat of pilot whales ( Globicephala melas ) in the Northern Atlantic have been reported to be around 2 mg Hg/kg w.w. (Dam and Bloch 2000). The reason for the lower levels of Hg in minke whale compared to pilot whale, is probably that the minke whale feed on prey with rather low Hg levels such as herring and krill in the north (Frantzen et al 2015; Haug et al 2002) and sand eel further south (Pierce et al 2004). …”

“…Of the different chemical forms of Hg, methylmercury (MeHg) is the most toxic and abundant in the marine food web. During the last several years, we have studied in detail the Hg content of two of the most important fish species in the Barents Sea, Atlantic cod ( Gadus morhua ) (Julshamn et al 2013) and the Norwegian spring spawning herring ( Clupea harengus ), which spends its juvenile stage there (Frantzen et al 2015). As the top predators are assumed to be most vulnerable to Hg accumulation in the Arctic (Scheuhammer et al 2015), one can assume that whales are highly susceptible to Hg accumulation.…”

Accumulation of Cadmium and Lead in Commercially Important Fish Species in the Gulf of Gemli̇k, Marmara Sea, Turkey

“…We found highCd and Pb levels in gills and muscle tissues of fish in our study. In a study by Frantzen et al (2015) accumulation of heavy metal such as Cd and Pb have been investigated in the muscle tissue of the Clupea harengus caught from the Norwegian Sea. It was reported that Cd and Pb levels in muscle tissue of fish were 0.010±0.006 µg g -1 Cd and <0.01±0.10 µg g -1 respectively.…”

Analysis of Main Arsenic Species in Canned Fish Marketed in the Czech Republic and Austria

“…The levels of arsenic and its species in fish can be influenced mainly by the feeding habit of a fish species and the arsenic level in environment, however some changes due to the age of fish [31] or season [32] have also been observed. The significance of variation in the concentrations of arsenic and its species across the various sample origin, fish species, and canned fish origin (α = 0.05) was tested by ANOVA and Student t-test.…”