Mussels

[grouse]

Safe to eat if you harvest them out of homer? Thanks

[Anythingalaska]

I'de never consider mussels 'safe' to eat. Sure you can harvest them at times that they are 'safer', but no bivalve in Alaska is ever completely 'safe' to eat. Also, Blue Mussells have had the highest concentration of PSP out of all shellfish ever found in Alaska at 20,000ug (over 80ug is unsafe). Blue mussels are the most unsafe shellfish to consume in Alaska, and I would never eat them for that reason. Many years ago a large group of native hunters ate mussels in an area now named 'Poison Cove', and then paddled their canoes north; only to die in a stretch of beach now named 'Deadmans Reach'. PSP is a serious and deadly illness, I will never take my chances eating something as PSP ridden as Blue Mussels.

[CA_Blacktail]

Ate some this weekend. Still here

[BrownBear]

Ate some this weekend. Still here

Yup, used to eat them in CA myself. Different water and lots different history with PSP here in Alaska. Trouble with mussels is they pick up PSP quicker than about anything in the water and concentrate the toxin at very high levels. And there's just a whole lot of PSP potential up here with virtually zero beach testing.

No comparison between what's happening here and in CA, and encouraging folks up here to eat them based on what's happening in CA edges on dangerous.