I’ve been thinking about fish a lot lately. What prompted me to do this cartoon was hearing a news story that included a new study that found some pregnant women in central Brooklyn, NY had enough mercury in their systems to land in the EPA’s warning zone. The article says, “the toxic metal most likely comes from eating too much of certain kinds of fish, like tuna and shark. Larger fish typically have higher mercury content, because they’re higher up in the food chain.”
As I thought about it, fish have played an important role in my life. Growing up, maintaining a tropical fish tank was a bonding activity I had with my father. We even had giant goldfish in a pond in our backyard. I spent summers with my family on the Jersey shore, and that’s where I learned to fish, usually only catching blowfish. Many a lonely afternoon was spent “sitting on the dock of the bay,” pondering the fish, and my fate. Later, I went on an outdoorsy-type program and had to fish for my dinner. I have now given up red meat, but I still eat fish (which is not so easy–there are even seafood apps for choosing what fish to eat). Little did I know, as a young girl, how complicated such a simple thing as fish would become.