Fishing and Hunting

About the Research The Environmental Chemistry Laboratory Core Technology Team (CTT) as part of the Environmental Health Program develops and applies innovative methods of sampling and analysis to answer critical questions about the occurrence, distribution, fate and transport, and biological exposure of chemical in all environmental matrices (water, air, tissues, sediments, and others).

The Fishing, Hunting, and Subsistence Living Integrated Science Team focuses on contaminant and pathogen exposures in the environment that could impact the presence and vitality of fish and wildlife populations that drive commercial, recreational and subsistence activities such as hunting and fishing. If actual risks are identified this project will inform how to economically and effectively...

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States and provides critical resources to fish, wildlife and people. For more than a decade, recreational fish species have been plagued with skin lesions and intersex conditions (the presence of male and female sex characteristics in the same fish) that biologists attributed to exposures to endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs)...

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists determined that endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) were present in wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluent, water, and fish tissue in urban waterways in the Great Lakes and upper Mississippi River Regions (Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, and Ohio) during 1999 through 2009.

Chemical contaminants including herbicides, veterinary pharmaceuticals, and biogenic hormones have been detected at fish nesting sites in the Potomac River watershed where endocrine disruption in smallmouth bass ( Micropterus dolomieu) was also observed. Although these contaminants are known to originate from a variety of human and animal-waste sources, results of a recent U.S. Geological Survey (...

Endocrine disrupting chemicals and indicators of endocrine disruption were found in several Minnesota lakes with surrounding urban, residential, agricultural, and forested land uses. The lakes do not directly receive discharges from industries or wastewater-treatment plants; however, they are used for recreation, and they receive water from widely scattered sources. The presence of both male and...

In two separate studies, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists demonstrated that hormones such as estrogen can biodegrade in stream and groundwater environments. This is an important finding because the science, regulatory, and environmental communities have concerns about the environmental fate of endocrine-disrupting chemicals, such as hormones, in the human wastewaters discharged to the...

An international team of scientists investigating mercury cycling in an experimental watershed in Ontario, Canada, conclusively demonstrated at the ecosystem scale that changes in mercury loadings are expected to result in proportional or near proportional changes in mercury bioaccumulation in fish. Policies to reduce atmospheric emissions of mercury are intended to reduce mercury bioaccumulation...

Intersex, the presence of both male and female characteristics within the same fish, is being observed in fish in more streams across the Nation. Intersex is one manifestation of endocrine disruption in fish. Endocrine disruption can result in adverse effects on the development of the brain and nervous system, the growth and function of the reproductive system, and the response to stressors in the...

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists are developing new laboratory analytical methods to measure contaminants in samples of environmental water, sediment, and soil. The work is part of a continuing effort to provide information on new and understudied contaminants to water-resource managers, environmental regulators, and the public. The new methods are used by USGS scientists and others to...