
Why You Shouldn’t Eat This Montana Fish (Why Would You Want To?)
Are you the adventurous types who are willing to give foods way out of the mainstream a try now and then?
If you are, here's one that may or may not have much consumer appeal. But just in case, an advisory on its consumption when taken from a narrow stretch of a Montana river has been posted for certain groups of people.
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks tells us that the Fish Consumption Advisory Board, consisting of representatives from the Montana Department of Public Health & Human Services, Montana Department of Environmental Quality and Montana FWP, has issued an updated consumption advisory for fish on the Yellowstone River.
Women of childbearing age, including nursing mothers, women who are pregnant or who may become pregnant, and young children (age 0 to 6 years) are advised to not consume shorthead redhorse, a fish in the sucker family, from Bratten Fishing Access Site to Itch-Kep-Pe Park in Columbus, Montana, on the Yellowstone River due to elevated levels of hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons are a class of chemicals made up of only carbon and hydrogen atoms. They can range from a simple gas, such as methane, to complex long chain chemicals found in crude oil. Hydrocarbons occur in both industry and nature.
The Advisory Board acknowledges that human consumption of fish species such as shorthead redhorse is uncommon, and there are no advisories on using meat from shorthead redhorse from this section of the river as bait while angling for other fish species.
Fish species from the Yellowstone River were initially sampled in the summer of 2023 for human health concerns as a follow-up to a train derailment that spilled liquid asphalt into the Yellowstone River. Various hydrocarbons were detected in fish tissue samples. The source of these contaminants was not determined.
If there is an upside, most of the chemicals detected in fish collected in 2023 and 2024, including those detected in the shorthead redhorse samples, have not been classified as cancer-causing.
Still, better safe than sorry.
Montana Town Names That Celebrate How Big and Awesome It Is
Gallery Credit: Ashley