Blue crabs- I sure hope they're on their way here, because they're not in the Chesapeake Bay.

"It's an anxious summer for watermen harvesting the Chesapeake's best-loved seafood, the blue crab. The way some see it, the crabbing business here isn't just dying. It's already dead.
Crabs have thrived in the bottom muck of the Chesapeake and its tributaries even as centuries of overfishing harmed oysters, fish and other species in the nation's largest estuary. Now blue crabs are in trouble, too, and when they go, a way of life is sure to go with them." LINK

Fish even more screwed- 'intersex' fish can't breed.

Oh, the poor freaking fish. They can't even breed anymore.

VIRGINIA "An investigation into the cleanliness of rivers feeding Washington's Potomac River has revealed the presence of sex-changing chemicals. The US Geological Survey (USGS) study followed the discovery of high numbers of intersex fish in the Potomac basin. " LINK

UK "A water-borne chemical is causing oysters to develop into hermaphrodites, which cannot breed, according to British scientists." LINK

UK "A third of male fish in British rivers are in the process of changing sex due to pollution in human sewage, research by the Environment Agency suggests. " LINK

COLORADO "Research conducted at the University of Colorado at Boulder that finds intersex fish in Colorado rivers downstream from wastewater treatment plants." LINK

MEDITERRANEAN "Evidence of a high percentage of intersex in the Mediterranean swordfish " LINK

"BEIJING, Jan. 19 (Xinhuanet) -- Several years ago scientists discovered bisexual fish with legs instead of fins in the Rhine river south of Frankfurt. Now fish in the Potomac River Basin near Washington, D.C. appear to be suffering the same fate for the same reason -- endocrine disrupter compounds." ETA LINK to article from Xinhua about this.


Did you know that fish 'talk' to each other? "Increasingly scientists are discovering unusual mechanisms by which fish make and hear secret whispers, grunts and thumps to attract mates and ward off the enemy." LINK Apparently, seahorses click at each other, butterfly fish 'whisper' to eachother, and pearlfish sound like bongo drums while communicating. I wonder what the gender changing fish say to each other. Oh hell.