Some Montana Animals Pose a Danger When Eaten

As an angler, the hardest part of fishing is not just finding fish, but finding what they are eating. If you can pinpoint what the fish are gobbling up that day, your odds of landing a fish increase. This time of year we know that if we want to catch a big fish, we hook up a smaller fish that the big fish calls food. Or maybe we simply use something stinky like Powerbait to attract a fish via smell. But what if the fish you are searching for is addicted to meth? Do you have any small rocks with hooks in your tackle box?

According to CNET.com

Household chemicals, medicines and prescription drugs can work their way through wastewater treatment facilities to contaminate rivers and streams, but the problem isn't limited to legal substances. New research shows illicit methamphetamines can wind up in the brains of fish, passing one of human society's ills further down the food chain.

From the sounds of it, it isn't just illicit drugs and prescriptions that are leaking into our rivers and lakes. Recent studies are showing highly elevated levels of something referred to as "FOREVER CHEMICALS" or PFAS (perfluoroalkyl substances). This is basically everything you have ever seen on shows like "The Toxic Avenger" in the 80s. Toxic chemicals are being dumped into our rivers that fish are absorbing.

According to NBC Montana, a recent study on the Clark Fork River revealed pollutant levels much higher than expected. Making it dangerous to eat fish from the river.

FWP staff collected both water and fish samples looking for pollutants. Depending on the results of the fish samples, FWP will work with the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services to evaluate a further need for an advisory on fish consumption. Currently, there is a fish consumption advisory on a 148-mile stretch of the mainstem of the Clark Fork River from the Bitterroot to the Clark Fork’s confluence with the Flathead River.

Other DANGEROUS food in Montana includes black bear. Recently, a family of 6 got severely sick after eating a barbecue black bear. The parasite called trichinellosis had infested the bear that was harvested in Canada. The bear was not properly cooked, resulting in the parasite being passed to all who ate the bear.

MY ADVICE:

As an avid outdoorsman with a freezer full of wild game, I have cooked it all—everything from bear to pronghorn.

• Unfortunately, I don't have any tips on how to eat fish from the Clark Fork safely.
• As for the bear meat. I like to remind myself that a bear is just a hairy pig. They are actually close relatives. I ask myself "Would you eat an undercooked pork chop?" NO. Bear meat MUST ALWAYS reach 165 degrees internally before eating.