Still, there was plenty of shock value when the stomachs of 89 smallmouth bass sampled from the mainstem of the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania in 2019 each contained an average of 29 pieces of microplastics — tiny bits of plastic about the size of a grain of rice or smaller.
When students from Susquehanna University picked apart the stomachs of the Susquehanna’s prized gamefish, they found the usual crayfish, insects, hellgrammites and smaller fish — even bullfrogs and a chipmunk. But also filling the guts were bits of clear and colored plastic.
The most common microplastics pulled from the fish innards were microscopic fibers, which could come from synthetic clothing, twine, plastic straws, tarps, diapers, wipes, fabrics or cigarette butts.
Other types of microplastics included foam from food containers and cups; industrial pellets; film from plastic grocery bags, bottles and candy wrappers; and jagged fragments of plastic.
The microplastics, eaten by smallmouths mistaking them for food, had drifted into the fish’s gills or were already inside ingested prey.
“When I saw the numbers, it was staggering,” said John Zaktansky, the Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper.
The Susquehanna University study, which had the cooperation of the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission and state Department of Environmental Protection, called the findings of so many microplastics inside the bass “alarming.”
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