Comments?

[roadwarrior]

From NPR:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6082152

[fourbizz]

Comment:

If that is how the fish are in the Potomac, I woudnt want to go fishing with any of the "lady" anglers that fish there.

[RoLo]

The damage that man is inflicting on planet Earth is growing progressively more serious.

The road ahead doesn't look too pretty.

Roger

[Paul Roberts]

Sad. Potentially scary.

But, not a new topic. This has been known in European waters for decades. It was only a matter of time before it made the news here.

I'm always re-struck by Apollo 8 astronaut Jim Lovell's comments when he looked back at Earth, for the first time in history, a little blue ball hanging there, "That's all we have. ... How fragile it appeared."

There are a lot of us now. We care for what we collectively value. And what do we value, really?

[NewAngler]

Ahhhh... Home sweet home. Yea, that's the same potomac I took my kids swimming in almost weekly the last half of the summer..

[senile1]

It is scary and it is an enormous job to determine the effects of the multitude of various chemicals used by humans that make it into our waters, land, and air.  We must balance the benefits of the chemicals with the deleterious effects they have.  That balance is difficult to achieve due to lack of knowledge and/or lack of concern.

[90x]

knowledge is the catalyst for prevention

[Bassn Blvd]

I can see it now, "Prozac scented worms." :-?

[SirSnookalot]

Hermaphrodite bass, sounds like a show for Phil Donahue.

[fishfordollars]

Now I know the reasoning behind some of the post from several members(You know who you are) here. If you are having thoughts of going both ways just own up to it. It's evident in some of your post. Guess now we will have to cut you some slack, as the problem is not all of your own doing.

The EPA and other groups have long bent to political pressure to look the other way when it comes to our water. I've said it before, if you think the price of oil is expensive just wait, the price of water will make it look like a joke down the road.

[Lund Explorer]

A person only needs to look at their state's fish consumption advisories, or the invasive species lists, to see that mankind has made a huge impact on our aquatic environment.  The same story holds true on dry land.

Its a whole lot better than it used to be, but I'm sure that there are many things we could still be doing to protect our natural resources.  

[Slip Gun]

There is a reason me and my friend stopped eating the catfish we pulled up for breakfast...

I mainly fish the Potomac and you can taste the difference between a Potomac catfish and other catfish.

The chemicals do not add to the after taste.   :-[

[Sam]

We catch 'em, not eat 'em.

I am sure either Maryland or Virginia will figure this out.  

[slider head]

We catch 'em, not eat 'em.

I am sure either Maryland or Virginia will figure this out.

Well, I bet Va takes a pass. It will probably have be up to Maryland. Va is in one of the worst budget shortfalls ever. They have closed the interstate rest stops for crying out loud! The VDGIF was ALWAYS at the bottom of the list for funding. The VDGIF has not recovered from thier African safari scandal a year or two back and I will bet you the majority of the VDGIF budget is spent on policing the idiots on SML.

[SammyLee]

If there is a direct causative relationship here, the solution is practically impossible.  Water treatment systems to remove these very small amounts of pharmaceuticals would be very expensive, I would guess.

I would like to see the ppm in the water in the Potomac vs. ppm in other places, like spring water in North Florida followed by microscopic examinations of fish reproductive organs.  Is it truly causative?

There just is no doubt that 5 billion humans on this planet have a negative effect on the ecology, so what are the top ten priorities to try to fix with limited resources?  

I can see it now, if you take drugs for your health, you must urinate in this special commode which is designed to remove pharmaceuticals.

I hate to see that our fish have reduced reproduction capabilities.  I want our waters just teeming with game fish.  Not so many that it becomes easy to catch them, that would be no fun, but a "target rich environment" would be a pleasure.

[Paul Roberts]

I can see it now, "Prozac scented worms." :-?

;D ;D

Happy bass will hit anything! And enjoy it!

[Paul Roberts]

The EPA and other groups have long bent to political pressure to look the other way when it comes to our water. I've said it before, if you think the price of oil is expensive just wait, the price of water will make it look like a joke down the road.

The infrastructure, posturing, and fighting, has already begun.

[Paul Roberts]

I want our waters just teeming with game fish. Not so many that it becomes easy to catch them, that would be no fun, but a "target rich environment" would be a pleasure.

We had that -200 years ago.

Can we have it again? The practical answer is hatcheries and intensively managed waters. The right way, all along, has been to recognize the value of biodiversity and species richness. That starts with respect for the water cycle. It all comes out in the wash.

I've always argued that anglers are the front line watchdogs of what's really valuable out there. Who else but scientists (and we know the respect they get nowadays from politicians and their media pundits) are gonna notice when something's amiiss.

It's true that we're over-runnning everything, except the things we collectively care about (and just what is that?), or have the foresight to "save". But foresight is based on experience, and each new generation has less and less to experience in terms of the meaning of species richness and diversity.

I'd love to say, "I hope I'm wrong". But I've been in this line long enough to have seen some important things follow the dire predictions.

The latest to shock me (dunno why) has been the collapse of Pacific salmon fisheries. I've followed that story since I was a budding Natural Resources student in the 80s, and a die-hard steelheader. I remember the talk of saving unique strains (something only scientists and die-hard anglers could really appreciate), only to have them all swept away by an ignorant and politically motivated court decision. Money wins. And it actually happened; I watched it go -once again. We lick our wounds and reset our sights lower.

I never did get to fish some of those unique strains -just the hatchery clones that simply failed to fill those rivers, streams and headwaters with progeny.

What's next? A lot is predictable, but by then, only lamentable by fogies.

[Raul]

Mmm, let 's see, birth control pills contain natural or synthetic estrogen & progesterone, dairy farmers use a lot of corionic gonadotropin, prolactin, prostaglandins, estrogens to boost milk production, correct fertilty problems or calendarize litter deliveries and knowing that we can maipulate the sex of farm fish by feeding them hormones ....... Why am I not surprised at all ?  :-?

[Uncle Leo]

Mmm, let 's see, birth control pills contain natural or synthetic estrogen & progesterone, dairy farmers use a lot of corionic gonadotropin, prolactin, prostaglandins, estrogens to boost milk production, correct fertilty problems or calendarize litter deliveries and knowing that we can maipulate the sex of farm fish by feeding them hormones ....... Why am I not surprised at all ? :-?

Thought provoking, sometimes our appetite is our own worst enemy. Are fish not just as edible as dairy products? If so why do we wreck that resource? Both seems to generate an income.

[boneil]

So now we know why there was a fish kill recently, I t was that time of the month.

I know, it was bad.

With the lack of reproduction, and the growing number of snakeheads it won't be long before the potomac is no longer the place to go for bass fishing in MD and VA.

[Raul]

Thought provoking, sometimes our appetite is our own worst enemy. Are fish not just as edible as dairy products? If so why do we wreck that resource? Both seems to generate an income.

Ignorance Leo, let 's put an example ( I use the dairy farmer as an example because I 'm familiar with it, many of my relatives are and have been dairy farmers for generations and I 've worked with some of them ), the dairy farmer makes it 's livelyhood out of milk, to him cows are not only a source of income but also are viewed as milk producing factories on four legs. In order to produce milk the animal has to get pregnant and deliver a calf ( otherwise it doesn 't produce milk ), but that "simple" process is not as easy at it seems and it cost money, every day the cow is not pregnant is costing him food, shelter, workmanship, property taxes ( not upon the cow but upon the land ) and so on; farmers may posses a lot of empiric knowdlege about cattle, you may add to that empiric knowledge a little scientific knowledge provided by us vets or by pharmaceutical companies however you seldomly see a dairy farmer who is a veterinarian.

The entire universe of a dairy farmer begins at the dairy farm door and ends at the same place, they don 't know and don 't care to know about waterways, ecosystems n 'all that stuff, all they want to know is about cows, sheep or goats producing milk to make his livelyhood so in a way we vets and pharmaceutical companies have part of blame because we only circusncribe our knowledge to provide the farmer with the elements he need in order for the animals to produce milk.

Dang ! you didn 't notice the cow was in heat so you can 't inseminate it right now ..... no problem, I grab a bottle of Lutalyse ( a synthetic prostaglandin ) take out a dose, inject it to the cow and in about 72 hours the cow will be in heat and ready for insemination. But what happens to the product once it 's done the job it has to do ? it 's excreted whole or as a methabolite in the cow 's urine, falls on the floor and nobody worries about it anymore.

One of my uncles has a 250 in-line cow dairy farm, that means he 's got at least twice as much animals, you know how many times I perform the procedure I described in a week ? at least 10 times a week on average, so it 's just a matter of multiplying, if that procedure takes place only in one dairy farm how many times it 's done in a region of dairy farms ? thousands of times.

But we have rain, it rains and the product that nobody worried about is washed from the dairy farm floor and it goes into the soil and if it rains more then it leaches from the soil into the waterways, do that on hundreds of dairy farms and you are talking about pounds of a very powerful medication leaching into the waterways. But we ignore that ( not willingly most of the times ) because our entire universe is circunscribed to the dairy farm we own or we work on.

[Paul Roberts]

Thought provoking, sometimes our appetite is our own worst enemy. Are fish not just as edible as dairy products? If so why do we wreck that resource? Both seems to generate an income.

Ignorance Leo, let 's put an example ( I use the dairy farmer as an example because I 'm familiar with it, many of my relatives are and have been dairy farmers for generations and I 've worked with some of them ), the dairy farmer makes it 's livelyhood out of milk, to him cows are not only a source of income but also are viewed as milk producing factories on four legs. In order to produce milk the animal has to get pregnant and deliver a calf ( otherwise it doesn 't produce milk ), but that "simple" process is not as easy at it seems and it cost money, every day the cow is not pregnant is costing him food, shelter, workmanship, property taxes ( not upon the cow but upon the land ) and so on; farmers may posses a lot of empiric knowdlege about cattle, you may add to that empiric knowledge a little scientific knowledge provided by us vets or by pharmaceutical companies however you seldomly see a dairy farmer who is a veterinarian.

The entire universe of a dairy farmer begins at the dairy farm door and ends at the same place, they don 't know and don 't care to know about waterways, ecosystems n 'all that stuff, all they want to know is about cows, sheep or goats producing milk to make his livelyhood so in a way we vets and pharmaceutical companies have part of blame because we only circusncribe our knowledge to provide the farmer with the elements he need in order for the animals to produce milk.

Dang ! you didn 't notice the cow was in heat so you can 't inseminate it right now ..... no problem, I grab a bottle of Lutalyse ( a synthetic prostaglandin ) take out a dose, inject it to the cow and in about 72 hours the cow will be in heat and ready for insemination. But what happens to the product once it 's done the job it has to do ? it 's excreted whole or as a methabolite in the cow 's urine, falls on the floor and nobody worries about it anymore.

One of my uncles has a 250 in-line cow dairy farm, that means he 's got at least twice as much animals, you know how many times I perform the procedure I described in a week ? at least 10 times a week on average, so it 's just a matter of multiplying, if that procedure takes place only in one dairy farm how many times it 's done in a region of dairy farms ? thousands of times.

But we have rain, it rains and the product that nobody worried about is washed from the dairy farm floor and it goes into the soil and if it rains more then it leaches from the soil into the waterways, do that on hundreds of dairy farms and you are talking about pounds of a very powerful medication leaching into the waterways. But we ignore that ( not willingly most of the times ) because our entire universe is circunscribed to the dairy farm we own or we work on.

This scenario in many forms and venues is repeated the world over. There are A LOT of us now, and we know not what we do. Or are willing to afford to care.

Great post Raul.

[Dan:]

I would check out the sewer treatment facilities at our nation's capital seeing as there are so many politicos and lawyers there, maybe too much is getting into the system and polluting the river, just a thought ;D

har har Muddy, but from what I gather, this stuff is happening upstream from DC. (although there is a large sewage treatment plant just downstream of DC)

and guys, they say very plainly that they don't know what is causing these mutations.

[Dan:]

With the lack of reproduction, and the growing number of snakeheads it won't be long before the potomac is no longer the place to go for bass fishing in MD and VA.

this article was written 3 years ago and the snakeheads have been here longer than that. I think the P'mac is holding up just fine.