PESTICIDES LEVEL IN MUSCLES OF Ctenopoma petherici FROM IKPOBA RIVER, EDO STATE

ABSTRACT

Pesticides level in muscle of Ctenopoma petherici from Ikpoba River, Edo State was carried between June to August, 2019. The fish samples used for analysis in this study were purchased alive from fishermen by the river bank at Ikpoba River. The purchased fish were thereafter brought to be laboratory and kept in the freezer for preservation. As part of the analytic procedure, they were thereafter defrozen and pulvereized in a mortar and then 10ml the extraction solvent was added. The effluent solvent was evaporated to dryness and reconstituted in acetonitrile for analysis using the HPLC. Only o,p-DDT (<LOD-1.62192), ᵞ-HCH (Lindane), (<LOD-0.397285) and  Heptachlor (<LOD-0.956901) were detected in this study. The pesticide concentration showed that ᵞ-HCH (Lindane) was the most dominant pesticide with a mean value of 0.239251µg/kg. While o,p DDT accounted for 41.7% of the total pesticide percentage in fish muscles. This was then followed by ᵞ-HCH (Lindane) with a percentage concentration of 30.8% and Heptachlor with 27.5%. Report from this study has further proven that pesticide toxicity is very much prevalent in our water bodies and endangers biodiversity and could be a threat to public health, considering the fact that man is a regular consumer of aquatic food. Thus, further studies are needed on how to mitigate the exposure of water bodies to these contaminants.