Secondly, my problem with this particular case of genetic engineering is
that these "Atlantic salmon" with the attributes described below pose a
major threat to what's left of native Atlantic salmon in North America. The
transgenic fish grow faster and can reproduce at a smaller size. Other
things being equal, this means that they will be more successful in
reproduction, leave more descendants, and thus swamp the gene pool with
their non-necessarily well-adapted genes for life at sea and in rivers. This
last point is important; there's evidence that each individual river-run of
salmon is micro-adapted in its genetic composition for maximal survival in a
given river, and making it out to sea and back. A sudden infusion of
essentially random genes in a given river population (stock) will
destabilize this genetic adaptation and probably lead to a stock collapse.
Maybe even worse, these genetically altered fish could be wildly successful
and become a new kind of weed. What would this mean?--who knows? That's the
problem.
--Bruce Stallsmith
Huntsville, AL, US of A
>No mermaids here-- the so-called Frankenfish is real. I wasn't kidding
>about the link I shared a few days ago. To learn about the issue Bruce
>asked about, read this article:
>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/04/29
>/MN155761.DTL
>
>Here are a few paragraphs:
>
>It looks like a North Atlantic salmon. But it grows seven times faster, and
>it's much more attractive to the opposite sex than a normal salmon.
>
>It's a transgenic fish, the first genetically engineered animal under
>review
>for the U.S. food supply. Embedded in every cell of its body are genes from
>the Chinook salmon and the ocean pout fish that make it grow more quickly.
>
>The altered salmon is likely to become the next focus in the battle over
>bioengineered food, after controversies over the desirability of
>genetically
>altered bovine growth hormones in cows and modified corn, soybeans and
>canola in cereals and tortilla chips.
>
>In the next year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will consider a
>petition by Aqua Bounty Farms of Waltham, Mass., to farm and market the
>altered salmon.
>
>--
>Jay DeLong
>Olympia, WA
>I talk to the wind
>My words are all carried away
>I talk to the wind
>The wind does not hear
>The wind cannot hear.
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