CALIFORNIA
Sport Fish Consumption Advisories

State of California
Gray Davis - Governor

Cal/EPA
Terry Tamminen - Secretary

OEHHA
Joan Denton - Director

Follow this link to download a pdf file

Important facts to know if you eat the fish you catch in California.

Public Health Advisories and Guidance on Sport Fish Consumption
Fish are nutritious and good for you to eat. But some fish you catch may take in toxic chemicals from the water they live in and the food they eat. Some of these chemicals build up in the fish - and in you - over time. Although the chemical levels are usually low, it’s a good idea to follow a few precautions in consuming fish, particularly if you eat fish often. The purpose of this brochure is to guide you to eat the fish you catch in ways that reduce your exposure to chemicals.

The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) provides specific consumption advice in this booklet for fish taken in areas where high levels of chemicals have been found in fish. However, because contamination levels are unknown for many locations, OEHHA also provides general advice on how to reduce your exposure to chemicals in noncommercial fish, referred to as sport fish, that you or your family catch.

These advisories are not intended to discourage you from eating fish entirely. Fish are nutritious and an excellent source of protein. The advisories should be followed to make your sport fish eating safer.

OEHHA can provide more information on the advisories and the health effects of chemical contaminants in the fish. OEHHA also has an illustrated brochure giving general advice. The brochure can be requested in several different languages. To stay current for updates and to request additional information, please check the OEHHA Web site at www.oehha.ca.gov or contact the Pesticide and Environmental Toxicology Section (PETS) of OEHHA in Sacramento or Oakland at the address given on the back cover of this booklet.

General Advice
You can reduce your exposure to chemical contaminants in sport fish by following the recommendations below. Follow as many of them as you can to increase your health protection. This general advice is not meant to take the place of advisories for specific areas, which follow later in this booklet, but should be followed in addition to them. Sport fish in most water bodies in the state have not been evaluated for their safety for human consumption. This is why we strongly recommend following the general advice given below.

Fishing Practices
Chemical levels can vary from place to place. Your overall exposure to chemicals is likely to be lower if you fish at a variety of places rather than at one usual spot that might have high contamination levels.

Be aware that OEHHA may issue new advisories or revise existing ones. Consult the Department of Fish and Game regulations booklet or check with OEHHA on a yearly basis to see if there are any changes that could affect you.

Consumption Guidelines
Fish Species:
Some fish species have higher chemical levels than others in the same location. If possible, eat smaller amounts of several different types of fish rather than a large amount of one type that may be high in contaminants.

Fish Size:
Smaller fish of a species will usually have lower chemical levels than larger fish in the same location because some of the chemicals may become more concentrated in larger, older fish. It is advisable to eat smaller fish (of legal size) more often than larger fish.

Fish Preparation and Consumption:

• Eat only the fillet portions. Do not eat the guts and liver because chemicals usually concentrate in those parts. Also, avoid frequent consumption of any reproductive parts such as eggs or roe.
• Many chemicals are stored in the fat. To reduce the levels of these chemicals, skin the fish when possible and trim any visible fat.
• Use a cooking method such as baking, broiling, grilling, or steaming that allows the juices to drain away from the fish. The juices will contain chemicals in the fat and should be thrown away. Preparing and cooking fish in this way can remove 30 to 50 percent of the chemicals stored in fat. If you make stews or chowders, use fillet parts.
• Raw fish may be infested by parasites. Cook fish thoroughly to destroy the parasites. This also helps to reduce the level of many chemical contaminants.

Advice for Pregnant Women

Young children and fetuses are more sensitive to the toxic effects of methylmercury, the form of mercury of health concern in fish.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for commercial seafood safety. FDA has issued the following advice about the risks of mercury in fish to pregnant women and women of childbearing age who may become pregnant. The FDA advises these woman not to eat shark, swordfish, king mackerel, and tilefish. The FDA also advises that it is prudent for nursing mothers and young children not to eat these fish as well.

The US Environmental Protection Agency has also issued national advice to protect against consuming mercury in fish. They recommend that women who are pregnant or may become pregnant, nursing mothers, and young children eat no more than one meal per week on noncommercial freshwater fish caught by family or friends.

National advice for women and children on mercury in fish is available from the US Environmental Protection Agency at: http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/fishadvice/advice.html

and the US Food and Drug administration at: http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/admehg.html

Adjusting Fish Meal Size for Body Weight
In the site-specific guidance that follows, OEHHA gives consumption advice in terms of meals for a given period such as a meal a week, and uses an eight-ounce meal size as the standard amount allowed for the "average" adult. The average adult weighs approximately 150 pounds (equivalent to 70 kg). Because you and your family members may weigh more or less than the average adult, you can use the chart below to adjust serving sizes to body weight.

How Big Is A Meal?

*sixteen ounces is equal to one pound

Site-Specific Consumption Recommendations
The following guidelines apply to the specific advisories that follow:

1. Eating sport fish in amounts slightly greater than what is recommended should not present a health hazard if only done occasionally such as eating fish caught during an annual vacation.
   
2. Nursing and pregnant women and young children may be more sensitive to the harmful effects of some of the chemicals and should be particularly careful about following the advisories. Because contaminants take a long time to leave the body after they accumulate, women who plan on becoming pregnant should begin following the more restrictive consumption advice, a year before becoming pregnant. In this way, the levels of chemicals stored in the body can go down.
3. The limits that follow for each species and area assume that no other contaminated fish is being eaten. If you consume several different listed species from the same area, or the same species from several areas, your total consumption still should not exceed the recommended amount. One simple approach is to just use the lowest recommended amount as a guideline to consumption.
4. Just because the area where you like to fish is not included in the specific advisory areas that follow, it does not necessarily mean that it is free from chemical contamination. Sport fish in most parts of the state have not yet been evaluated for their safety for human consumption. Follow the general advice given earlier to protect your health.

The specific advisories listed below are arranged generally from north to south.

Lake Pillsbury (Lake County)
Because of elevated levels of mercury, women who are pregnant or may become pregnant within a year, nursing mothers, and children under age six should not eat fish from Lake Pillsbury. Other adults and children age six and older may eat fish from Lake Pillsbury on an occasional, but not regular, basis.

Clear Lake (Lake County) and Lake Berryessa (Napa County)
Because of elevated mercury levels, adults should eat no more than the amounts indicated below per month. Women who are pregnant or may become pregnant, nursing mothers, and children under age six should not eat fish from these lakes. Children 6-15 years of age should eat no more than one-half the amounts indicated for adults.

*Species not present or not tested

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Photo: Kimberly McKee-Lewis, associate wildlife biologist for the California Department of Fish and Game, caught a barracuda on a sport fish tagging effort in San Diego Bay.

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