Jim
02-11-2013, 11:32 AM
Hi all,
I spent the last several days at a fisheries conference and though I would pass along some information from a few of the interesting presentation I saw.
In several pretty scary presentations on largemouth bass and water quality, the following results from field collections are being found.
Estrogen (female sex hormone) is being found in water all across the country. It comes from the breakdown of chemicals like agriculture fertilizer, growth hormones from feedlots, and birth control pills. As a result, intersex fish are being found all over the place. These are male bass that have eggs in them. It results in a number of problems relating to successful spawning and fertilization of eggs.
In one test, several test ponds were dosed with estrogen at levels of 0, 2, and 5 and then after the spawning the ponds were drained and the condition of the bass and the production of the nest were compared. The 0 and 2 levels were not bad, but the 5 level was a mess. Lots of intersex fish.
What does this mean in the real world, Georgia biologists recently sampled their states reservoirs and found estrogen levels from 0 to 65 in the water. In the higher level waters up to 88% of male bass had eggs. Georgia is pretty close to Tennessee and not all that different, so it makes me worry about our waters.
Finally, there were references to human health studies coming out that show the fertility of men in the US has dropped up to 50% over the past 50 or so years when compared to countries that do not use these chemicals.
Yikes! We are all getting doses of birth control pills from the water as water treatment facilities do not remove these chemicals.
Just something to think about,
Jim
I spent the last several days at a fisheries conference and though I would pass along some information from a few of the interesting presentation I saw.
In several pretty scary presentations on largemouth bass and water quality, the following results from field collections are being found.
Estrogen (female sex hormone) is being found in water all across the country. It comes from the breakdown of chemicals like agriculture fertilizer, growth hormones from feedlots, and birth control pills. As a result, intersex fish are being found all over the place. These are male bass that have eggs in them. It results in a number of problems relating to successful spawning and fertilization of eggs.
In one test, several test ponds were dosed with estrogen at levels of 0, 2, and 5 and then after the spawning the ponds were drained and the condition of the bass and the production of the nest were compared. The 0 and 2 levels were not bad, but the 5 level was a mess. Lots of intersex fish.
What does this mean in the real world, Georgia biologists recently sampled their states reservoirs and found estrogen levels from 0 to 65 in the water. In the higher level waters up to 88% of male bass had eggs. Georgia is pretty close to Tennessee and not all that different, so it makes me worry about our waters.
Finally, there were references to human health studies coming out that show the fertility of men in the US has dropped up to 50% over the past 50 or so years when compared to countries that do not use these chemicals.
Yikes! We are all getting doses of birth control pills from the water as water treatment facilities do not remove these chemicals.
Just something to think about,
Jim