o 
Sexual Maturity. Spent females were significantly 
different than maturing females in having higher con¬ 
centrations of petrochemicals in the liver (parti¬ 
cularly toluene) and higher parasite burdens. Young 
prespawning females exhibited more alterations of egg 
maturation rate and resorption associated with petro¬ 
chemicals. Young prespawners were also more likely 
to have open or only partly healed cestode lesions. 
o Parasites. A significant proportion of adults 
(approximately 33 percent had scars from cestodes- 
induced lesions. These fish were in generally poorer 
condition than those without scars, and had higher 
levels of pollutants, particularly petrochemicals. 
Young adults and juveniles showed open lesions from 
these parasites (Figure 3). Many of the older fish 
had relatively large numbers of Anasakid roundworm 
larvae, sometimes in muscle. This worm can impact 
the health of man. 
4. Pollutants . Adult striped bass from the San Francisco Bay- 
Delta system contained relatively high levels of pol¬ 
lutants from several classes (Table 3. ranges; Whipple, 
et. al. in prep, contains all means and standard devia¬ 
tions). Some of these pollutants showed strong 
correlations with poor health and condition, parasite 
burdens and impaired reproduction. 
o Petrochemicals. There were significant levels of 
monocyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, including benzene, 
toluene, ethylbenzene and three isomers of xylene, in 
tissues of striped bass. There were also significant 
levels of alicyclic hexanes. All these components 
are relatively toxic to fish (Benville and Korn, 
1977; Benville et. al. 1985). In addition to the 
effects on the fish associated with these compounds 
in liver and ovaries, the muscle tissue appeared to 
differentially accumulate toluene which has been 
shown previously to cause the "tainting" or bad fla¬ 
vor in other species. Other data (Vassilvos, et. al . 
1982) show that there were also relatively high lev¬ 
els of polycyclic aromatics in adult striped bass. 
For example, levels of thiophenes in fish from the 
San Francisco Bay-Delta were higher than in fish from 
other areas. These compounds are carcinogenic. 
High levels of petrochemicals in the fish correlated 
strongly with deleterious effects measured, including 
egg resorption (Figure 4) and abnormal reproduction. 
The mean egg resorption by year, comparing locations, 
is shown in Figure 5. In 1982, sample size (7) was 
90 
