Aquatic canaries in the coal mine - Oceana USA
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September 21, 2006

Aquatic canaries in the coal mine

Evil doers beware – a new soldier’s been drafted into the war on terror. If our color coded charts and duct tape sent chills up your spine, wait until you get a load of our bluegills.

San Francisco, New York, Washington and other big cities are using bluegills — aka sunfish or bream — to safeguard their drinking water. These fish are highly attuned to chemical disturbances in their environment, and could be able to detect chemical warfare before traditional detection means. When the fish are exposed to toxins, they flex their gills in the same way a human would cough.

Sadly, there are plenty of toxins that could make these freshwater fish “flex their gills” and Osama didn’t put them there.