Advisory Warning About Eating Sport Fish

ALBANY, N.Y. - Anglers, beware: New York's state Health Department has reiterated its warning that women of childbearing age and children younger than 15 should avoid eating most species of fish caught in the Adirondacks and Catskills, while adding 16 advisories about elevated mercury levels in sportfish from specific ponds, lakes and reservoirs in the state.

And New York is hardly alone in advising against the consumption of fish caught for sport. According to the nutritionist Marion Nestle in her new book "What to Eat," just out from North Point Press, "virtually all sports fish are so contaminated with methylmercury that 48 states (exceptions: Wyoming and Alaska) have issued advisory warnings" about eating fish from certain waters.

The broad warning for New York, first issued a year ago and reiterated this spring, says young women and children should avoid eating northern pike, pickerel, walleye, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass and larger yellow perch from all waters in the Adirondack and Catskill mountain regions because of mercury contamination.

The department's long-standing advice also remains in effect that no one should eat more than one meal, or a half-pound, of any New York freshwater fish in a week.

Mercury can affect a developing nervous system as well organs in a fetus, infants and young children. Some contaminants may also build in women and may be passed on during breast feeding, according to the state Health Department.