KEPO seeks help from Community for Fish Study

07/08/2014

The Kahnawà:ke Environment Protection Office (KEPO) will be conducting a summer long Fish Study and is seeking help from community members to gather information.

KEPO is aware that there is a fear in the community concerning the contamination of fish and is attempting to determine safe limits for fish consumption from local waters. This will require samples from fish caught in the community which will be analyzed at the Centre for Indigenous Peoples’ Nutrition and Environment laboratory at the MacDonald campus of McGill.

KEPO would also like to interview local fishermen and fisherwomen to determine their average fish consumption. This information will help establish the standard quantities of fish being consumed by those actively catching fish in the community.

If you are willing to participate, please call Holly McComber or Patrick Ragaz at 450-635-0600 for full details on the procedure to collect fish samples or to make an appointment for an interview.

This work will build on and update a previous effort completed in 1997. That study found that the fish in the community were generally safe to eat at the levels consumed by community members at that time. KEPO hopes to reassure the community that this is still the case.