Biomonitoring of selected persistent organic pollutants (PCDD/Fs, PCBs and PBDEs) in Finnish and Russian terrestrial and aquatic animal species

BACKGROUND The Finnish and Russian animal species (semi-domesticated reindeer, Finnish wild moose, Baltic grey seal and Baltic herring) samples were biomonitored in terrestrial and aquatic environments for polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDEs). RESULTS Grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) was clearly the most contaminated species. The mean PBDE concentration in grey seal was 115 ng/g fat, and the highest WHO-PCDD/F-PCB-TEQ (toxic equivalent set by WHO) was 327 pg/g fat. In Finnish, reindeer WHO-PCDD/F-TEQ varied from 0.92 pg/g fat in muscle to 90.8 pg/g fat in liver. WHO-PCDD/F-TEQ in moose liver samples was in the range of 0.7-4.26 pg/g fat, and WHO-PCB-TEQ in the range of 0.42-3.34 pg/g fat. Overall moose had clearly lower PCDD/F and DL-PCB concentrations in their liver than reindeer. CONCLUSIONS Terrestrial animals generally had low POP concentrations, but in reindeer liver dioxin levels were quite high. All Finnish and Russian reindeer liver samples exceeded the EU maximum level [8] for PCDD/Fs (10 pg/g fat), which is currently set for bovine animals.