It’s the season for steaming hot bowls of clam chowder and oysters on the half-shell with champagne.  But if you harvested those shellfish yourself in the Aleutians, be aware they might contain high levels of the shellfish toxin PSP.

While PSP outbreaks mostly happen during the summer, Aleutian Pribilof Island Community Development Association biologist Bruce Wright says in recent years wintertime outbreaks have been detected in the Aleutians as well. Wright and another scientist were doing year-round monitoring of PSP through an Environmental Protection Agency grant for the last two years, but that funding ran out in October. 

Wright says he’s heard anecdotal reports this winter of people suffering from mild cases of paralytic shellfish poisoning after eating clams harvested in the Aleutians.  But he says there’s no official data.

"Right now the state, federal and local governments are not testing for subsistence-harvested PSP levels."

Wright says pinpointing where PSP will occur is difficult, although historically areas around Unalaska, Sand Point and King Cove have registered toxic levels.  He also says most wintertime PSP outbreaks appear to occur after storms and heavy rainfall, but there can be significant variability even on one beach.

Which is why Wright recommends anyone collecting subsistence shellfish – particularly butter clams and blue mussels – test for PSP.

“Go out and collect a bunch of buckets and hold them and then send a subsample in and wait for your results.  Because you just can’t predict what this stuff is going to do.”

The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation will run PSP tests for a fee, one that’s probably worth it considering poisoning can cause nausea, paralysis and even death.  More mild symptoms generally include numbness or tingling in the skin and lips.  Different people react differently to the same levels of PSP, so not everyone will have the same symptoms.

Wright says he’s hoping to get funding to do more testing in the future, but for the time being it’s up to harvesters to be aware of the risk. 

More information about collecting shellfish and testing for PSP can be found here.