Male fish are turning female. (No, not on purpose and not naturally.)

Somehow I ran across this article this morning. It caught my eye since I spend a lot of time around fish. I am wondering if there are any studies that anyone knows of taking place looking for these changes here in the Aloha state?

Agricultural chemicals, pharmaceuticals causing male fish to become egg-carrying mutants

It turns out that male fish are being turned into females because of pollution and contaminants in the water where they live. What will this mean for the future of our finned friends? Or our reefs? Can it happen here? I know there is a lot of concern about our states ability to treat waste water effectively and every now and then we hear of an accident or spill occurring. This sounds like sci-fi stuff to me. Anyone have any thoughts?

I don't know about chemicals causing it but lots of fish change sex.

BRT:

I don't know about chemicals causing it but lots of fish change sex.

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Please read the article. I know lots of fish change sex naturally. That is not the case with this new development. They are studying the effects that pollutants and hormone disrupting chemicals are having on normal fish. This is not a good thing for the future of the affected species, including man!

I'm not a marine biologist, but...

It's definitely not a new observance. The source paper is an interesting read and the same researcher with the USGS found in a 2012 study that

An association between TO severity and wastewater treatment plant flow, percent of agriculture, total number of animal feeding operations, the number of poultry houses, and animal density within the catchment was observed.

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My own opinion is that it definitely can happen in Hawaii. Hawaii's smaller scale might prevent it from getting very bad in the immediate future, but not forever. But that's why steps are being taken to prevent that from happening on your islands. I would guess that the places where this was observed are the same places you don't want to be swimming after a rainstorm due to runoff.

There are many chemicals our wastewater treatment plants don't treat... they are designed to remove things like fecal coliform bacteria, etc. Thus the nearshore waters can be significantly affected by discharges. These observations are not really new, but they are drawing more attention.