The liver of wild boars are bioindicators for the presence, types and concentrations of PFAS “forever chemicals” in sites with limited industrial and human activities.
A new study has found that European wild boar, Sus scrofa, contains toxic PFAS (per-and poly-fluoroalkyl substances) at levels that are nearly five times greater than what is allowed under EU law in meat sold for human consumption. This EU regulation was introduced in 2023 and oversees concentrations of PFAS in vegetables, fish and meat, including game, with game offal having the highest levels allowed.
The popularity of wild boar meat and offal varies from region to region within the EU. Residents of Germany, Italy and France commonly eat it, but it’s also eaten in Spain and in Eastern European countries.
PFAS, commonly known as “forever chemicals” because they are nearly indestructible, are a group of more than 12,000 synthetic chemicals. PFAS are found almost everywhere — in our homes, our offices, our clothing and even in our food. These man-made chemicals are toxic at extremely low levels (i.e. parts per quadrillion), and they pose significant risks to human health, including cancer, fertility issues and liver damage.
This most recent study was conducted on wild boar living in the Bohemian Forest National Park (Šumava National Park) in the Czech Republic. The park, which borders Germany and is close to the Bavarian Forest National Park, has been a protected site since 1963. It is home to a population of around 400 wild boar, whose population is annually controlled, thus providing scientists with access liver samples.
Wild boar were selected for these PFAS studies because they — and their livers in particular — are good “bio-indicators” of “background” levels of PFAS in the environment. This is because boar root around in the soil for something to eat, and will eat mostly anything they run across, including plants and small animals, and even soil, which can be a major source of PFAS.
For this study, 29 livers from wild boar were tested for 30 different PFAS. The median amounts found in the liver — which bio-accumulates compounds like PFAS — were 230μg/kg, nearly five times the maximum amount allowed in game offal under EU laws.
“The level of contamination in the wild boar in the national park is a cause for concern,” said the co-lead author of the study, analytical biochemist Viktoria Müller, now a postdoctoral fellow at the James Hutton Institute. Dr Müller began this particular study whilst a grad student at the University of Graz.
“We are now finding PFAS everywhere, but that it’s at levels above those allowed for human consumption in food — and wild boar meat and offal is consumed by humans — is a worry,” Dr Müller explained.
When compared to a number of earlier studies of different body tissues obtained from wild boar living in a rural area of northeastern Germany, the boar in the Šumava National Park contained twice as much PFAS. But why are these boar so heavily contaminated?
“[P]inpointing why the levels were higher in the park would need a bigger study,” Dr Müller replied.
“The profile of the types of PFAS found in the park matched those generally found at ‘background’ levels, suggesting atmospheric deposition, from rain and wind for example. But the high concentrations we found suggest deeper investigation is needed.”
Source:
Till Schröder, Viktoria Müller, Marc Preihs, Jan Borovička, Raquel Gonzalez de Vega, Andrew Kindness, and Jörg Feldmann (2024). Fluorine mass balance analysis in wild boar organs from the Bohemian Forest National Park, Science of The Total Environment 922:171187 | doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.171187
© Copyright by GrrlScientist | hosted by Forbes | LinkTr.ee
Socials: Bluesky | CounterSocial | Gab | LinkedIn | Mastodon Science | Spoutible | SubStack | Threads | Tribel | Tumblr | Twitter