Why do wild Alaska salmon contain so little mercury?
Three factors contribute to Alaska wild salmon’s remarkable purity: • Wild Alaska salmon are short-lived fish that feed very “low” on the food chain. Pink and red salmon live only two to four years, weighing 4 to 5 pounds and 5 to 7 pounds, respectively. As a rule, larger, longer-lived fish (which in turn eat other long-lived fish found “high” on the food chain) present higher levels of mercury in their flesh. • Wild salmon are filter feeders, not predatory fish. Predating species such as swordfish, tuna and others, ingest and retain contaminants like mercury from their prey. Predatory fish are exposed to more mercury pollution through the escalating process of bioaccumulation, whereas salmon filter smaller, simpler organisms from the water. • Environment is everything! Wild Alaska salmon inhabit the pristine waters of the North Pacific and its surrounding land mass, an area millions of miles square that suffers little to no industrial pollution. Airborne pollution from coal-burning po
