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Pollution and Seafood: What People Think 



In recent years, noted media outlets 

 such as Consumer Reports, The Wash- 

 ington Post, USA Today, Time and The 

 Today Show have taken swipes at the 

 seafood industry, claiming the prod- 

 ucts are uninspected and contaminated 

 by toxins, heavy metals, bacteria and 

 viruses that pollute our coastal waters. 

 In some cases, this negative informa- 

 tion has caused decreases in seafood 

 consumption. 



But how do news reports about 

 coastal pollution really affect people's 

 feelings about the fishermen's catch? 

 Will stories about syringes on the New 

 Jersey shore stop people in North 

 Carolina from buying flounder fillets at 

 the grocery store? 



No one knew until recently. 



Two Sea Grant scientists, David 

 Griffith and Jeff Johnson, anthropolo- 

 gists at East Carolina University, 

 recently completed a two-year study 

 aimed at understanding people's 

 perceptions of coastal pollution and its 

 effects on the quality of seafood. 



They interviewed and asked 

 questions about seafood and pollution 

 to a random sample of 140 individuals 

 in two North Carolina towns, Siler 

 City and Hobucken, and in Baltimore, 

 Md. Then the team analyzed and 

 interpreted the results. 



Their findings suggest that con- 

 sumers do agree there is a direct 

 relationship between seafood safety 

 and pollution. But people aren't 

 exactly sure what that relationship is 

 and how it works. 



For instance, they understand that 

 PCBs contaminate fish. But they aren't 

 sure if certain species of fish are more 

 susceptible to contamination than 

 others or where the PCB concentrates 

 in the fish's body. 



Griffith says that people tend not to 

 discriminate between different types of 



pollution, believing that the presence 

 of any kind of pollutant will have 

 negative effects on human health. 



And interestingly, the general 

 public puts great faith in its powers of 

 taste and smell to detect any contami- 



nated seafood. "In fact, during our 

 interviewing, some respondents voiced 

 the belief that seafood which tasted bad 

 had been tainted by a pollutant of some 

 kind," Griffith says. 



Perhaps their reliance on their 

 sensory perceptions underlines another 

 ambiguity people have about seafood. 

 Griffith says people were unclear 

 whether they could trust the food 

 industry to keep seafood contaminated 

 by pollution off the shelves. 



When it comes to stopping pollu- 

 tion, respondents believed some types 

 — litter and some industrial contami- 

 nants — can be reduced. But other 

 forms of pollution, for instance acid 

 rain and oil spills, can't be controlled 

 and are the price we pay for progress. 



A message such as this, Griffith 

 says, sends the signal to the food 

 industry that, at least for the time 

 being, fishermen, farmers, processors, 

 grocers and restaurateurs probably 



need not worry that the public will 

 reject foods based on its understanding 

 of the relationship between food safety 

 and pollution. There exists an almost 

 fatalist attitude that pollutants have 

 become a fact of life. 



What can the seafood industry learn 

 from these findings? 



First, people's limited knowledge 

 led them to lump fish and shellfish 

 together and to consider it all tainted by 

 any incidence of coastal pollution. 



Government and industry need to 

 educate consumers about the differ- 

 ences between effects of pollutants on 

 various seafood products, Griffith says. 

 And it may be wise to educate consum- 

 ers about the depth, breadth and 

 diversity of marine environments and 

 about the sea's capability to cleanse 

 itself of pollutants over time. 



Additionally, space and time figure 

 prominently in how consumers think 

 about pollution and seafood safety. The 

 ability to think about pollutants in terms 

 of where and how rapidly they affect 

 the environment may mean they will be 

 predisposed to information that illus- 

 trates how the effects of pollutants may 

 be confined to certain places and times. 



This finding also suggests that the 

 industry would do well to supply more 

 information about where and when 

 seafood is harvested. 



Finally, Griffith says there seems to 

 be a lack of faith in the industry's 

 capability to police itself. To combat 

 this problem, he suggests supplying 

 more information about inspection 

 programs currently in place and 

 expanding these programs to include 

 more products in the future. 



For more information about 

 Griffith's findings, write: Institute for 

 Coastal and Marine Resources, East 

 Carolina University, Greenville, NC 

 27858. KathyHart 



COASTWATCH 21 



