Biomonitoring of selected persistent organic pollutants (PCDD/Fs, PCBs and PBDEs) in Finnish and Russian terrestrial and aquatic animal species

Background: The Finnish and Russian animal species (semi-domesticated reindeer, Finnish wild moose, Baltic grey seal and Baltic herring) samples were biomonitored in terrestrial and aquatic environments for polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDEs). Results: Grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) was clearly the most contaminated species. The mean PBDE concentration in grey seal was 115 ng/g fat, and the highest WHO-PCDD/F-PCB-TEQ (toxic equivalent set by WHO) was 327 pg/g fat. In Finnish, reindeer WHO-PCDD/F-TEQ varied from 0.92 pg/g fat in muscle to 90.8 pg/g fat in liver. WHO-PCDD/F-TEQ in moose liver samples was in the range of 0.7–4.26 pg/g fat, and WHO-PCB-TEQ in the range of 0.42–3.34 pg/g fat. Overall moose had clearly lower PCDD/F and DL-PCB concentrations in their liver than reindeer. Conclusions: Terrestrial animals generally had low POP concentrations, but in reindeer liver dioxin levels were quite high. All Finnish and Russian reindeer liver

Concentrations and profiles of brominated diphenyl ethers (BDEs) in Baltic and Atlantic herring

The total concentrations of BDEs in Baltic herring, caught in different years (2002-08) from various areas of the Baltic, and in Atlantic herring (2006) can be reasonably well described by a single concentration vs weight relationship. Samples collected a few years earlier and analysed by others show a slightly different relationship. This indicates that the weight of the fish is an important factor determining the level of contamination and that the contamination apparently did not increase between 1999 and 2008. However, two Baltic herring samples collected in 2007 contained, for reasons unknown, very high concentrations of BDE 209. The BDE profiles (concentrations scaled to a sum of 100) varied a great deal. It is impossible to determine how much of this variation is real and how much is caused by errors in the analyses. The concentration of the BDE 75 was much higher in the Atlantic than in the Baltic herring. Even after taking this into consideration, however, the BDE profile in Atlantic herring is different from the BDE profiles in Baltic herring