Bio-magnification is when a chemical, such as Mercury, is put into an ecosystem and grows. It starts out in just the very small animals, but then as slightly larger animals eat more of the smaller animals it spreads to them and they have more in them. Then when a even larger animal eats some of the smaller animals, it spreads to that and they have even more than the previous. This goes on and can even eventually get to humans.
Mercury is useful for making thermometers, barometers, diffusion pumps, and other instruments. Mercury is a toxic heavy metal that occurs naturally. Human activity is what causes it to end up in the environment. Some major sources of mercury pollution are: coal-fired power plants, boilers, steel production, incinerators, and cement plants.
Only mercury gets released into the air, it then falls to earth and builds up in the water and soil. Then the mercury accumulates in the animals, in this case fish. Then as the larger fish eat some of the smaller fish there levels rise, and so on up the food chain. The large predator fish have very high mercury levels up to one million times that of the surrounding water.
The National Wildlife Federation, starting in 1999, began efforts to lessen mercury pollution. They wanted new, stricter limits on mercury air pollution. They had hundreds of thousand of supports who attended public hearing, signed post cards, and made phone calls. Their efforts finally paid off in 2011, when the Environmental Protection Agency released new air pollution standards to help reduce mercury pollution. The new standards cut the mercury emissions by 91% and helped cut other harmful emissions as well. This solution had been in front of them for so long, yet they waited 12 years to finally act on it. This was an issue that was killing many wildlife and should not have been put off for as long as it did.
"Mercury Pollution." National Wildlife Federation. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2015.
"NRDC: Mercury Contamination in Fish." NRDC: Mercury Contamination in Fish - Know Where It's Coming From. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2015.
Complete. What other things could have helped with the clean up of this problem??? Also does this occur in just the marine life??
ReplyDeleteOther solutions could be to make the factories move farther away from everything, and also completely cut mercury emission.
DeleteIt does not only occur in marine life, as stated in the first paragraph it can get to humans. This could be caused by a bird eating a fish, and then that bird being eaten by something humans could eat.