Chemicals from contraceptive pills, cleaning agents, plastics, and cosmetics are turning fish transgender, according to a report.
In his study, Professor Charles Tyler from the University of Exeter discovered that around twenty percent of male freshwater fish in fifty sites have become transgender from chemicals.
Side effects in the transgender fish include the production of eggs, “feminised traits,” reduced sperm, and “less aggressive and competitive behaviour,” which the report claims will make them “less likely to breed successfully.”
“We are showing that some of these chemicals can have much wider health effects on fish than we expected,” Professor Tyler declared. “Using specially created transgenic fish that allow us to see responses to these chemicals in the bodies of fish in real time, for example, we have shown that oestrogens found in some plastics affect the valves in the heart.”
“Other research has shown that many other chemicals that are discharged through sewage treatment works can affect fish, including antidepressant drugs that reduce the natural shyness of some fish species, including the way they react to predators,” he continued.
Professor Tyler is set to present the results from his study at the University of Exeter this week.
Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook.