Summary

Description

We examined the health of fortyone wild caught sturgeon from a reach of the Mississippi River with an organochlorine consumption advisory and a reference site. The health indices included physical and microbiological examinations, endocrine disruption, histopathology and whole carcass contaminant analysis. All of the sturgeon from the sampling location within consumption advisory reach had relatively larger livers compared to the sturgeon from the reference site. We observed health anomalies in the male specimens from the sampling location within the consumption advisory reach. The anomalies included plasma estrogen and testosterone ratios that were greater than one for three male sturgeon specimens and vitellogenin was induced in two of these three cases. Two other male sturgeon specimens taken from the consumption advisory reach had intersex characteristics. These sturgeon specimens with the health anomalies ranked among the fish with the highest tissue chlordanesPCB concentrations. The apparent toxicological effects threshold for chlordanesPCB was greater than 1.2 ugg ww whole body concentration, however there was an exception.