Mercury in Seals

The livers of Alaskan fur seals have been found to contain 116 times the amount of mercury that is considered safe for human consumption. The seals live in deep water that is fifty miles or more off the Pacific coast of North America. Since they migrate along the coast between the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea and Baja California, they could have picked up the mercury from industrial wastes emptied into the Pacific Ocean. This is another indication of the extent to which man is polluting his environment. As one food company owner in California said: “You can just figure from this that there isn’t any place in the whole world that isn’t contaminated.”