Scientists identify deadly chemical killing coho salmon
Christopher Dunagan
Puget Sound Institute
Haunted by the sight of disoriented coho salmon keeling over and dying before they could spawn, scientists have been searching for more than 20 years to find a deadly chemical thought to be prevalent in the urban streams of Puget Sound....
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Like searching for a needle in a haystack, this relatively new “non-targeted” approach started with a full array of chemicals found in tires. Through chemical separation, toxicity testing and identification, the team narrowed the list of suspect chemicals. This type of analysis goes well beyond the traditional method of looking for specific chemicals with known toxicity. The non-targeted approach can identify chemicals not found on anyone’s list of dangerous compounds.
“Non-targeted analysis is cutting edge, especially in the environmental sciences,” noted Kolodziej. “It is based on letting the instrument tell you what is there, without making any assumptions.”...
