| Nine heavy metals have been analysed in the liver, muscle and kidneys of sperm whales that stranded on the Belgian coast, November 18, 1994. The concentrations of most of the studied inorganic contaminants -except mercury and cadmium- were very low. The mercury content of the tissues was high, but in the range of those found in sperm whales previously described in the literature, as shown by Joiris et al. (this volume), and most of the mercury was found under an inorganic form. We found a close correlation between the mercury and selenium contents of the livers, which strongly suggests that the pollutant was detoxified under the tiemannite form, and therefore was not potentially toxic for the animals. On the contrary, cadmium was found in high... |
