Sea Life Tests Positive for Opiates

Has the opiate crisis gotten so bad that even animals in the ocean are being contaminated? Unfortunately, the answer is yes.

In the Puget Sound off the coast of Washington State, a monitoring program discovered that mussels tested positive for opiates. Mussels are filter feeders meaning they simply absorb what nutrients come through the water.

The mussels tested positive for compounds found in Oxycodone in particular. The test was performed by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Now the good news is the samples in questions came from urban areas far away from commercial fishing beds.

You might be wondering how this occurred. The answer is a little gross, but since mussels feed off what is coming through the water, the most likely culprit is from sewage runoff.

What information does this give to researchers? One researcher had this to say. “It’s telling me there’s a lot of people taking oxycodone in the Puget Sound area," Jennifer Lanksbury, a biologist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, told Seattle’s KIRO-TV.

There is not much for us to worry about as the amount found was thousands of times lower then what is in a prescribed dose. Although, it is still unclear to researchers what other things in the ecosystem could be affected.

It is crazy to think even the act of people taking these pills could impact the environment and possibly cause damage. It was already discovered at a University in Utah that zebrafish will dose themselves with opiates. Several researchers believe salmon may act in the same way and salmon are common off the coast of Washington.

Again, there appears no direct risk to humans but this speaks volumes as to our negative impact on the ecosystems around us.