Article #10 12/17/12
Brian Bienkowski. Environmental Health News. "Hormones from Livestock Operations May Skew Fish Gender." Scientific American.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=hormones-from-livestock-operations-may-skew-fish-gender
Topic: Marine Life
This article is about how the baby fish near Indian farms are being exposed to run-off and therefore their gender is being affected, they are most likely to be male then fish raised in water that were not contaminated. Livestock put out natural hormones such as estrogen and testosterone and depending on the amount those hormones could possibly be responsible for the skewed sex ratio of fish that are near the farms. Fish usually are born with equal number of males and females but the fish that were in the Indiana streams turned out to be 60% male. There are other factors however that could also affect a fish's gender such as water temperature, nutrients and pesticides.
I chose this article because the title caught my eye right away. I didn't know that it was possible for agriculture run-off to affect something as serious as the gender of fish. I think something must be done about this because if there continues to be a larger amount of male fish than females then the whole fish population will also decrease as a result.
Topic: Marine Life
This article is about how the baby fish near Indian farms are being exposed to run-off and therefore their gender is being affected, they are most likely to be male then fish raised in water that were not contaminated. Livestock put out natural hormones such as estrogen and testosterone and depending on the amount those hormones could possibly be responsible for the skewed sex ratio of fish that are near the farms. Fish usually are born with equal number of males and females but the fish that were in the Indiana streams turned out to be 60% male. There are other factors however that could also affect a fish's gender such as water temperature, nutrients and pesticides.
I chose this article because the title caught my eye right away. I didn't know that it was possible for agriculture run-off to affect something as serious as the gender of fish. I think something must be done about this because if there continues to be a larger amount of male fish than females then the whole fish population will also decrease as a result.