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<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.courant.com/opinion/op-ed/hc-op-thorson-sexually-confused-fish-new-england-0414-20160413-column.html">http://www.courant.com/opinion/op-ed/hc-op-thorson-sexually-confused-fish-new-england-0414-20160413-column.html</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p style="background:white"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">Fishing season opened Saturday in southern New England. I saw happy people fishing from bridges, and lots of cars in nearby roadside pullouts. As always, I was delighted to see the ritual turn of nature's
calendar. But this year, a nagging thought intruded. New England fish are sexually confused.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background:white"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">More specifically, they're increasingly "intersex," meaning "one sex develops characteristics of the opposite sex." I quote an alarming paper published this February in the journal Ecotoxicology and
Environmental Safety by L. R. Iwanowicz of the U.S. Geological Survey and his colleagues at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Astonishingly, the intersex condition was the case for 85 percent of male smallmouth bass and 27 percent of male largemouth bass
sampled from waters of 19 National Wildlife Refuges in the Northeastern United States.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background:white"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">I know two of these sampled refuges quite well because they're central to my latest book project: the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge and the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge, both in Massachusetts.
In them, the bass are being physically and chemically trans-sexed against their will.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background:white"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">More specifically, "estrogenic endocrine disrupting chemicals," or EEDCs, are causing "gonad histopathology" manifesting as "testicular oocytes in male gonochorist fishes." In other words, a variety
of natural and synthetic chemicals are causing male fish to start making female eggs.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background:white"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">"In aquatic ecosystems, [the] two dominant sources of EEDCs are agricultural production ... and wastewater treatment plant effluents." The former refers to chemical pollution from livestock feedlot
operations and from fields either fertilized by manure or treated with pesticides, or both. This may include leachate from animal waste or the herbicide atrazine. The latter refers to anything you and your family flush down the toilet wherever and whenever.
In that flush are endocrine disruptors such as those from birth control pills and menopause medications. After passing readily through septic systems and wastewater treatment plants, these chemicals flow with little impediment into streams like those of the
wildlife refuges.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background:white"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">Sourcing the local EEDCs to specific causes is a tricky and complex problem in chemical detective work. But, in general, this type of pollution is aggravated by our increasing dependency on designer
pharmaceuticals and a diet high in red meat.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background:white"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">At the bottom of the pharmaceutical food chain are users, who buy life-saving and life-enhancing drugs. Luckily, I'm still drug-free. At the top are the pushers, the for-profit drug companies flooding
the market with media advertisements and marketing campaigns urging us to ask our doctor about more drugs. Perhaps their profits should be taxed to mitigate endocrine disruption of our waterways. Feedlot meat factories (they don't deserve the word agriculture)
are an evil we've come to tolerate. Both the feedlot, and the stuff we spread on the field to grow the feed, contribute to the chemical bath. Perhaps meat factories should be made more accountable as well.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background:white"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">As crazy as it sounds, using fewer drugs and eating less meat will likely help our finny friends avoid sexual confusion.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background:white"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">To have chemicals causing fish to change sex characteristics in our wildlife refuges is particularly alarming. These areas are set aside to protect wildlife from the incursions of man. In the early
20th century, when fashion demanded feathers in hats, U.S. commercial hunters shot and trapped large migratory birds — herons, egrets, flamingos, cranes, etc. — to the edge of extinction, especially along the Atlantic flyway. To protect them, Congress passed
the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. After four failed attempts to create a refuge system, they finally passed the Migratory Bird Conservation Act of 1929. It provided the authority that created the present National Wildlife Refuge System, now with 560 refuges
and 38 wetland management districts.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background:white"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">But now the insidious migration of harmful chemicals through our waterways makes a mockery of the refuges and protections for all our streams. A wildlife refuge that isn't a refuge is hypocrisy.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background:white"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">I suspect that those who I saw fishing on opening day weren't fretting about "gonad histopathology." My concern is that it might be happening to them as well.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background:white"><em><span style="font-size:10.0pt">Robert M. Thorson is a professor at the
<a href="http://www.courant.com/topic/education/colleges-universities/university-of-connecticut-OREDU0000152-topic.html" title="University of Connecticut">
University of Connecticut</a>'s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. His column appears every other Thursday. He can be reached at
</span></em><span style="font-size:10.0pt">profthorson@yahoo.com</span><em><span style="font-size:10.0pt">.</span></em><span style="font-size:10.0pt"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Laurie Tenace<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Environmental Specialist<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Waste Reduction Section<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Florida Department of Environmental Protection<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">2600 Blair Stone Road, MS4555<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Tallahassee, FL 32399<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="mailto:Laurie.Tenace@dep.state.fl.us">Laurie.Tenace@dep.state.fl.us</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">850.245.8759<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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