Indigenous communities along Alaska’s coast are developing scientific networks to test shellfish for toxins because the state is not doing so.
On a cool morning in August, Stephen Payton stood at the edge of a dock in Seldovia, Alaska, dragging a fine, conical net at the end of a pole through the rippling ocean water. Screaming crows and gulls wheeled above us in the damp air, as the long-limbed 30-year-old watched his ghostly net wend its way underneath the surface. A small plastic bottle at the net’s narrow end captured and concentrated particles from the water.
Harmful algal blooms, however, are occurring more frequently in Alaska’s northern coastal regions, across more months of the year, making harvesting at any time a risk. Recent research found that blooms in the Arctic Ocean increased by more than 50 percent between 1998 and 2018. The frequency and intensity of dangerous blooms are likely to rise even further as northern latitudes warm.
The intertidal harvest also sustains vital knowledge and cultural lessons. “When the tide is out, the table is set” is a traditional saying that speaks to the shore’s bounty: clams, mussels, sea urchins, Dungeness crabs, sea cucumbers, hard-shelled chitons, octopi and snails. Researchers suspect some or all of the animals may contain toxins. In Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula region, two thirds of residents who collect clams live in low- to medium-income households.
No Safe Beaches Phytoplankton, commonly referred to as algae, are a keystone food source for countless marine creatures, from clams to baleen whales. The single-celled organisms have evolved into a riotous array of species, colors and shapes. Given the right combination of light, heat and micronutrients—from natural sources such as glaciers as well as agricultural and sewage runoff—algae can grow out of control, or “bloom.
Potentially lethal algae are steadily drifting northward along Alaska’s largely unmonitored coastline, with only a handful of unsung sentinels like Payton standing in its way. Although media reports about HABs usually focus on problems in U.S. West, East and Gulf Coast regions, the state with the worst algal blooms, NOAA’s Kibler says, is Alaska.
The state’s position is not good enough for Seldovians, either, who have devoted time and resources “trying to make sure that what we had as children is here for our children and our grandchildren,” says Michael Opheim, Payton’s uncle. As head of environmental work for the Seldovia Village Tribe, he is also Payton’s boss.
I met Wright inside the white hallways of Anchorage’s Department of Environmental Conservation. We walked into a state-funded lab escorted by its director, Patryce McKinney; it is the only facility in Alaska that is federally approved to test shellfish for human consumption, which it does for the oyster and geoduck industries. Wright greeted a technician who had just injected three mice with a cooked slurry of oyster flesh and was waiting to see if they would die.
Alaska’s HAB network is an inspiring model, Lefebvre says—a group of globally connected experts with whom individuals in remote communities can personally engage. Residents can then transmute what they are learning into new, tribal teachings, informed by climate change, including ways to protect themselves and other vulnerable shellfish harvesters.
Despite all this work, a satisfying solution remains elusive. Wright says testing of shellfish by the Sitka Tribe and Alutiiq Pride is a good start, but he worries about the reliability. ELISA is not FDA-approved for shellfish intended for human consumption, because toxins produced by shellfish are often a grab bag of hundreds of different chemicals mixed together, some undetectable to the ELISA machine. U.S.
Brasil Últimas Notícias, Brasil Manchetes
Similar News:Você também pode ler notícias semelhantes a esta que coletamos de outras fontes de notícias.
![Scream Directors Explain Why They Let [SPOILER] Live](https://i.headtopics.com/images/2022/1/23/screenrant/scream-directors-matt-bettinelli-olpin-and-tyler-gillett-explain-why-they-changed-the-script-to-allo-1485322469883920387.webp?w=640)
Scream Directors Explain Why They Let [SPOILER] LiveScream directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett explain why they changed the script to allow one particular new character to survive their encounter with Ghostface.
Consulte Mais informação »
Robert Pattinson Explains His Take on Batman's No-Kill RuleRobert Pattinson gives his take on TheBatman's hotly-debated no-kill rule: 'It can be interpreted in two ways. Either he only wants to inflict the appropriate punishment, or he wants to kill and his self-control prevents him from doing so.'
Consulte Mais informação »
One Killed In Deadly Freeway CrashA person was killed in a two-vehicle collision Saturday in Los Angeles.
Consulte Mais informação »
Man killed in an auto-pedestrian accident on IH-30One pedestrian was killed in an accident on IH-30 Saturday night.
Consulte Mais informação »