Pacific bluefin tuna which have migrated from Japan to California have been found to be contaminated with radioactive cesium from the Fukushima nuclear accident, researchers from Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific have reported in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). Despite radiation contamination, levels so far detected are well below those considered hazardous for human health, the authors emphasized.

The researchers have no doubt that the fish caught of the San Diego coast in 2011 were contaminated with radiation that originated from the nuclear disaster.

Seafood distributors have been assuring the American public that their bluefin tuna should not be affected by radiation because they are fished thousands of miles from Japanese waters.

Bluefin tuna migrate, and on this occasion were caught by sports fishermen off the Californian coast. Daniel J. Madigan, a marine ecologist, senior author in this study, added that the affected tuna had not been headed for the consumer market in the USA.



Pacific bluefin tuna