Gender Re-Alignment of Fish
Posted on Tue, Aug 25, 2009 @ 02:27 PM
By Damien Crawford, Technical Service Representative, Triumvirate Environmental Somerville
Imagine that you are enjoying a nice summer day on the lake with your family and your two daughters are swimming in the lake and when they come out for an afternoon bite to eat, you notice something different about them. Their voices are noticeably deeper, and they have small patches of facial hair growing. This may sound far fetched, but this gender re-alignment is actually occurring in fish in the US. It has been documented that fish in Colorado rivers, which are located near water treatment facilities, have been found to be switching from males to females. This gender switching is thought to be linked to an excess of estrogen, and estrogen mimicking compounds (nonylphenols) which are found in plastics, paints, and cosmetic products. Fish and amphibians are looked at as “the canary in the mine”, an indicator to the quality of our nation’s waters. So what does this mean for us? Well it could mean that we don’t yet truly know all of the effects that “progress” has on human health or the environment.