A TEAM of North Yorkshire students is set to investigate a powerful chemical which is causing whelks off our coastline to change sex.
The students and lecturers from the Scarborough campus of Hull University will be studying the effects of tibutyltin, a chemical used to protect ships' hulls which can cause the sea molluscs to change gender.
The study is being launched following the discovery that the numbers of whelks changing sex has increased dramatically in recent years.
Jean-Paul Ducrotoy, Head of Coastal Science at the Scarborough campus, said tibutyltin is used as an anti-fouling measure on the hulls of boats.
He added: "It is a nasty organometallic compound which is persistent and therefore highly toxic.
"It seems that North Sea pollution is having a strange effect on the whelk.
"The change of sex in animals is not really new. What is new is the scale of it. It is frightening that there are many such chemicals in the North Sea."
Updated: 10:36 Saturday, April 14, 2001
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