Posession limits and fishing different bodies of water

[tweedwolfscream]

OK you're right, the consumption advisories go by meals, not individual fish, and a whole fish is often more than the assumed meal size.

But I'd also point out that 8 is kind of an arbitrary number. It's the maximum number that the consumption advisories will say, indicating the safest fish. Why 8? Because of some health recommendation somewhere that since fish are so good for your health, you should eat fish twice a week. Twice a week translates to 8 times a month, so that's what the MOE used as their upper limit. Doesn't mean more wouldn't be even better for your heart.

Actually I found a different version of the story in the intro to the consumption advisories guide:

Quote:This maximum recommended consumption frequency was based on the results of surveys indicating that most anglers do not consume sport fish more frequently than 8 meals per month. However, many of these fish can be safely consumed more frequently. Anyone who consumes sport fish more frequently than 8 meals per month is advised to contact the Sport Fish Contaminant Monitoring Program (416-327-6816 or 1-800-820-2716, sportfish.moe@ontario.ca).

In the end, of course, fish consumption is a health tradeoff. I remember reading a study of the health impacts of farmed Atlantic salmon (which carry cancer-causing PCBs) and the researchers concluded that salmon prevent many times more deaths by heart disease than they cause by cancer. Of course that's a very sketchy thing to quantify, and the researchers had jerry-rigged some sort of methodology for coming up with that statement, but it's food for thought at least. Also, since the buildup of contaminants in your body is cumulative over the long term, the other question is how many times a year are you catching your non-Simcoe 6-whitefish limit? Probably not much in the summer.