Dr. Seth Moore: Tribe participating in mercury health study

Dr. Seth Moore is Director of Biology and Environment with the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. 

The Grand Portage Reservation is located in the extreme northeast corner of Minnesota, on the North Shore of Lake Superior in Cook County. Bordered on the north by Canada, on the south and east by Lake Superior and on the west by Grand Portage State Forest, the reservation encompasses an historic fur trade site on beautiful Grand Portage Bay.

The band engages in fisheries and wildlife research projects throughout the year, working with moose, wolves, fish, deer, grouse, and environmental issues. Dr. Moore appears regularly on WTIP North Shore Community Radio, talking about the band's current and ongoing natural resource projects, as well as other environmental and health related issues of concern to the Grand Portage Band.

In this segment, Dr. Moore talks about the Grand Portage band's participation in an upcoming study by the Minnesota Department of Health that will involve 500 women of childbearing age in Cook County and measure blood mercury levels over the course of one year.  The study is in response to research showing elevated levels of mercury in North Shore newborns.  The “Mercury in Newborns in the Lake Superior Basin” study was conducted by the MDH Environmental Health Division from 2007 to 2011, in collaboration with state newborn screening programs in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan.  Produced by Carah Thomas.