© AFP Photo / Yoshikazu Tsuno
 
 
While the state of Oregon gears up to test its shores for radioactive contamination from Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster, university scientists have found that radiation levels in some albacore tuna caught off its coast have tripled.

According to researchers at the University of Oregon, the results came after tests analyzed the cesium levels in 26 tuna caught prior to the 2011 nuclear calamity - as far back as 2008 - and those caught after the accident.

Although the levels of radioactive isotopes in some of the tuna tripled after the disaster, the researchers found they are still  lower  than the "" safety standards "" outlined by the US Department of Agriculture.

"A year of eating albacore with these cesium traces is about the same dose of radiation as you get from spending 23 seconds in a stuffy basement from radon gas," the study's lead author, Delvan Neville said to Oregon's Statesman Journal.

Still, Neville added that the discovery of any amount of radiation is significant.