Me At Gatorman1@aaof.usA Tour Guides View Of Mercury
You all know that I’m not a writer by trade, I’m an Everglades tour guide and the last two months were very busy. I’ve been giving Air boat tours from sunup to sundown with no time off for spending any sort of quality time with friends, family or story writing. I know that all of you really care about the Everglades that is why you visit the Airboat Association of Florida web site and read my stories. Many have told me how they look forward to them each month. It’s very important to me that as many people as possible know what is going on in The Everglades. Things are slowing down a little now, so I figured I’d better hurry up and get this out. Thank you all for caring so much about the Everglades and for what I have to say about them. I hope you enjoy this story even though it’s a little late.
A lot of people ask me about pollution in The Everglades. The most common questions are about levels of mercury or other toxins in the glades and how they affect our water and food here in South Florida. Many of the tourists that I meet have mentioned that on their way to join me here at Gator Park, they have seen people fishing on the side of the road, right under signs that warn people not to eat fish caught in the area due to mercury levels. I tell folks that the fish caught here are quite safe. The signs were placed several years ago because a few unusually sensitive people got sick but for most people there’s not enough mercury to create any problems. I do know a bit about mercury in The Everglades because I have 1.5 parts per million of mercury in my own body. “Glenn,” you might ask, “How do you know so precisely how much mercury you have in your body?” Well, I’m just about to tell you.
Some time ago, I met Dr. Laura Fleming of the University of Miami. She was doing a study on mercury levels in fish and animals in The Everglades and stopped one day to talk to me about the fish I was catching. To complete her study, Dr. Fleming had to have human test subjects and asked me if I would participate. She had come to Loop Road and U.S. route 41 in The Everglades to test the local fishermen and she asked if she could have a lock of hair from my head. Dr. Fleming took my hair and asked me some questions about how long I had been eating fish, reptiles and other animals from the area (my whole life). I really didn’t want to admit to some of the things that I had eaten because some of them were protected species (although they were not protected when I ate them). Dr. Fleming assured me that no one was going to come looking for me for what I had admitted to eating a long time ago. The fishing, by the way, was really good that day as well.
About two months later, I got a letter from Dr. Fleming telling me that I had 1.5 parts per million of mercury in my body. At first I was stunned. I didn’t know what having that 1.5 parts per million of mercury in my body meant but it sure didn’t sound good. I called the good doctor and told her I would be glad to participate in her study but I was a little nervous. She told me that I had nothing to worry about, in fact, Dr. Fleming told me that she had 3.5 parts of mercury per million in her own body and had never even eaten anything from The Everglades.
The final set of tests in Dr. Fleming’s study was going to take all day. You know me; I’ll do anything I can to advance knowledge especially if it concerns our Everglades. I arrived early and the first thing they wanted to do was test my reflexes. Apparently, one of the symptoms of mercury - poisoning is a loss of sensation or deadening of the nerves. The Dr. and her assistants poked me, pinched me, shocked me, scratched me and burned me. It really wasn’t as bad as it sounds and my reflexes were just fine. Then they put me in front of a computer screen to check my visual response time and then they checked my auditory response time. I scored pretty high for a country boy; it must have something to do with clean living and plenty of fresh air.
The final test was kind of interesting. To test neural response to stimuli, the Dr. dilated my eyes and put me in a darkened room. Soon, the room exploded with all kinds of brightly colored lights and flashing strobe lights. Dr. Fleming told me that most people couldn’t take it for more than twenty minutes or so. I was really starting to enjoy myself, when after only 45 minutes they asked me to come out. They were surprised that I hadn’t been as disturbed by the visual stimulus as their other test subjects had been. The data they were able to collect by testing me was more complete than what they had been able to get from any of their other subjects. They told me I was just fine. Again, I attribute that to clean living and plenty of fresh air. They told me that I obviously had not been affected by any mercury in anything that I had eaten throughout my life in the Everglades. I needn’t worry about any problems in the future since I was unlikely to be affected by the trace amounts that I may come into contact with on a sporadic basis. So, folks, you ought to come out to The Everglades and join me for some great fun and beautiful views. The bass are biting and they sure are tasty. Remember, NATURE RULES!!!
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Or Me At Gatorman1@aaof.us
