Russell Fielding: Metals Research Core Seminar

Russell Fielding

Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies
Department of Earth & Environmental Systems
University of the South

Title:  The Wake of the Whale: Mercury and Public Health in a Caribbean Whaling Society

Russell Fielding is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. Since 2005 he has directed a study of artisanal whaling societies in the Caribbean and Atlantic. Topics of conservation, culture, economics, and politics have all been important to this work. The most pressing area of research today is the presence of high concentrations of methylmercury and other environmental contaminants in the tissues of the whales, which are processed into food for human consumption. The public health effects of these contaminants are better understood in some societies than in others. Fielding’s current scholarly efforts involve the transfer and adaptation of knowledge from one whaling community to another.