diff --git a/modules/Bio/EnsEMBL/DBSQL/SequenceAdaptor.pm b/modules/Bio/EnsEMBL/DBSQL/SequenceAdaptor.pm
index 09674cece212b1bb73df84f61ff1142093b131ad..498e3f0c1cbe60b25dc1d4693f7045552645d2a7 100644
--- a/modules/Bio/EnsEMBL/DBSQL/SequenceAdaptor.pm
+++ b/modules/Bio/EnsEMBL/DBSQL/SequenceAdaptor.pm
@@ -466,7 +466,7 @@ sub _fetch_seq {
 
     # return only the requested portion of the entire sequence
     my $min = ( $chunk_min << $SEQ_CHUNK_PWR ) + 1;
-    my $max = ( $chunk_max + 1 ) << $SEQ_CHUNK_PWR;
+    # my $max = ( $chunk_max + 1 ) << $SEQ_CHUNK_PWR;
     my $seq = substr( $entire_seq, $start - $min, $length );
 
     return \$seq;