Thoughts on Genetically Modified Salmon?

[425nm]

Originally Posted by TimT

I had heard that they were planning to raise them in pens in the Caribbean. Less environmental laws and incredibly cheap labour rates. As an added bonus the fish would grow faster in the warmer water. If they thought the lionfish epidemic was bad in the Caribbean these fish would make them look like delicate eaters once they got out of the pens and started breeding.

I suspect this would devastate the farmed salmon industry in Canada when all the companies moved to Central America.

I personally don't eat farmed Atlantic Salmon as I prefer wild Coho or Sockeye. I also don't like that they load the fish up with artificial colouring to make the flesh turn orange. Orange fleshed salmon sells much better than white fleshed salmon.

Current "draft" with the FDA is that the folks in PEI produce sterile (triploid) all female eggs which will be sold to one facility in Panama (that meets FDA standards) where they will be raised in a freshwater flow through system. No live transgenic fish is to enter the United States.
Not sure how the FDA plans to inspect/enforce across borders.
Problem with farming salmon is that they need to eat other fish. So it solves nothing. Plus is cranks out tons of nitrogen into surrounding water.

[Dearth]

I personally have no issues with genetically modified salmon it is a hot topic in the lower mainland but up north here not so much but I see it as the ocean has a finite amount of resources and even carefully managed will still deplete over time whereas farm fish can be harvested for an infinite time as it does not rely on nature and its fickleness.

[somewherebeyondthesea]

My family has been involved with triploid rainbow trout, and we had a great experience, with these.

I can see both sides have valuable arguments. Just like any GMO product they will never be able to match that of organic food IMO. And it seems that GMO products have less nutritional value than that of organic foods.

I could see how this would help sustain depleting fisheries. This is a reoccurring problem. The main argument we had for keeping triploids was that we couldn't have wild caught as they could "in the event of a flood or bird of prey picking up and dropping off said specimen into another body of water" could severely effect that ecosystem.

I would argue that even though they couldn't spawn, they would get large enough much faster say if you had a juvenile schools of fish in that lake/river.
You could argue that this is similar to the chicken and beef industry in that they use similar methods to mass produce foods.

If you're interested in a more hippie approach to it I would contact "save the reef" from PADI? They have interesting arguments and programs that look after protecting wildlife in our oceans. They may have some investing points on salmon.




Cheers,




Steve