Assessment of Mercury Concentrations in Liver and Hair tissues of Golden Jackal (Canis aureus) in Central Mazandaran Province Coastline

Subject Areas : environmental management

Hassan Malvandi ¹ , Abbas Esmaili-Saria ² , Seyed Mahmoud Ghasempouria ³

1 - MSc Student, Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Natural Resources and Marine Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Noor, Mazandaran
2 - Professor, Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Natural Resources and Marine Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Noor, Mazandaran
3 - PhD. Student Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Natural Resources and Marine Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Noor, Mazandaran

Received: 2010-01-05 Accepted : 2010-03-03 Published : 2014-05-22

Keywords: Mercury, Liver, hair, morphometric variables, Jackal (Canis aureus), Mazandaran&#x0D, &#x0D, province,

Abstract :

Introduction: The goal of this study was determination of concentration of mercury in hairand liver tissues of the golden jackal (Canis aureus), and to determine the relation betweenthe mercury concentration in liver and hair and body weight and length, and sex. These datawere then used to evaluate the suitability of using hair as a noninvasive technique for determiningbody burdens of mercury.Materials and Methods: Liver and hair samples from golden jackal were collected from Noorin the central coastline Mazandaran province. The samples of this study were taken fromroad-killed. The mercury was measured by the LECO AMA 254 Advanced Mercury Analyzer (USA)according to ASTM, standard No. D-6722.Result and Discussion: There wasn’t any significant difference neither between sexes nor in tissues.On the contrary, positive and significant differences (p>0.05) were found between mercury level inhair with weight and length of body. Mercury level was generally low; they do not reach levels thatare known to cause potential adverse effects in animals. It's probably to be a first study for goldenjackal for this purpose, and also this probe suggested easy and non-invasive sampling

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