Salmon lead adventurous lives and are highly edible, but are no longer cherished as a cuisine in northeast China, where people fear salmon have been contaminated by radiation leaked from a crippled nuclear reactor in Japan following a devastating earthquake and monsoon in March.

"It had been a long-time privilege for me to preserve some salmon at the request of relatives and friends. But (lately) they have refused it, even when I called to offer them some," said Xing Guo, a fishery worker in Fuyuan County which lies on the Sino-Russian border in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province.

Guo's mother told him not to eat salmon after she heard rumors that the fish had been contaminated in the Sea of Japan before they made their migration to local fresh water.

"I have seen some fish thrown in the rubbish bin outside. Not daring to eat it, those who received salmon as present threw it away," he said.

The small county of Fuyuan, which is nestled along the Heilongjiang River, is well-known for its wild salmon. The salmon is cherished by those on high-protein diets as well as those who believe it helps in heart attack prevention.

Some of Heilongjiang's salmon are anadromous, which means they are born in fresh water, but migrate to the ocean before returning to fresh water to spawn.

Like most natives of Fuyuan, 60-year-old retired worker Li Ruiyi developed a habit of eating fresh salmon and preserving some salted salmon at home, but, this year, he will do neither.

"So many friends have told me that salmon have been contaminated this year and are extremely harmful to eat," Li said. "More importantly, we have younger generations and a baby at home, and I can not harm them."

Infinitesimal radioactive particles of iodine-131 (I-131) have been detected in air samples collected in Fuyuan following radiation leaks from Japan's quake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

After that, rumors spread that salmon caught in the fall would have been contaminated before migrating back from the Sea of Japan, said local residents.

In the fish market of Fuyuan, booths selling salmon are attracting few local buyers and most have been sent to other cities, said fish retailers in Fuyuan.

In previous years, one salmon could fetch 100 to 150 yuan (about 15.63 to 23.44 U.S. dollars) at market, with local residents paying even more for the first fish caught in the autumn as they believe the first fish is a sign of luck, said Shi Guihua, the boss of a fish business in Fuyuan.

"As the rumor spread, the year's first salmon was ignored," Shi said, adding that, for years, over two-thirds of the salmon in her shop were sold to local and domestic clients. But this year only one-tenth has been sold locally.

The selling price for salmon this year is only about one-tenth of previous years, but "even the fishermen and the peddlers refuse to eat salmon," she said,

For three consecutive days in mid-September, no radioactive I-131 or Cesium-137 had been detected in the roe, meat of both male and female fish, or the gills of salmon in Fuyuan, said a report conducted by the National Institute for Radiological Protection of Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

"It shows that the salmon that migrated back to Heilongjiang had not been contaminated, and are safe to eat," said Hu Peng, director of the radiological protection department with the Heilongjiang Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

They are representative indexes and the results even fall under the lowest limits of the testing equipment, he said.

Despite the results being reported by local media, residents are not convinced about salmon safety.

"We heard that fishermen in Japan and Russia did not catch salmon this year, so concerns spread in Fuyuan," said Zhao Chunbo, a local man who works in the fish business.

The rumor caused residents of Fuyuan to panic, and the test results did not alleviate worry, said Li Guofeng, director of the aquatic product bureau in Fuyuan.

"Fishing is the pillar industry of Fuyuan, a small border county with a majority of its residents living off the business. They have suffered great losses, which are a terrible blow to local fishing industry," said Li.

Sun Li, a middle-aged fisherman, is facing about 30,000 yuan in losses this year in addition to no income from the fishing season.

"I have never seen such low fish prices and a poor market in my 15-year career," said Sun, who noted little change after the rumor-vanquishing news broke.

Local authorities have set up a special testing department and strengthened long-term radioactive contamination monitoring, said Hu.