Mercury Contamination in the Red Meat of Whales and Dolphins Marketed for Human Consumption in Japan
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Cetacean products sold for human consumption in Japan originate from a wide range of whale, dolphin, and porpoise species caught off several areas of the Japan coast, Antarctic and North Pacific Oceans. We surveyed the total mercury (T-Hg) levels in red meat, the most popular cetacean products in Japan. We also analyzed the DNA of these to obtain information regarding species. According to the genetic analysis, the red meats originating from nine species of odontocete and six species of mystecete were sold in Japanese markets. T-Hg concentrations in all odontocete red meats (0.52-81.0 microg/wet g, n = 137) exceeded the provisional permitted level of T-Hg in marine foods set by the Japanese government (0.4 microg/wet g). The highest and second highest levels of T-Hg in the red meats were found in the false killer whale (81.0 microg/wet g) and striped dolphin (63.4 microg/wet g), respectively. These concentrations of T-Hg exceeded the permitted level of T-Hg by about 200 and 160 times, respectively, suggesting the possibility of chronic intoxication by methyl mercury due to frequent consumption of odontocete red meats. The T-Hg concentration levels were higher in odontocete species such as Baird's beaked whales and pilot whales caught off southern areas than those caught off northern areas, probably reflecting a higher Hg concentration in the seawater and/or their diet (squid and fish) in the southern area. On the other hand, T-Hg concentrations in all mystecete red meat samples except for one (0.01-0.54 microg/ wet g, n = 62) were below the permitted level of T-Hg, probably reflecting their lower trophic levels.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".