A recently published US Geological study, where researchers tested bass near 19 wildlife refuges in the Northeast, revealed that 85% of male smallmouth bass surveyed have “characteristics of the opposite sex”—specifically eggs where their testes should be.
The same is true of 27 percent of area largemouth bass.
Researchers didn’t do a chemical analysis of the water where the intersex fish were found but they suspect that birth control pills, pesticides, hormones in livestock manure, and chemical-heavy products, which are put into drains and end up in US waters may be the cause of the transgender bass surveyed.