This Should Not Count As A Record!

[taxidermist]

http://www.trophytroutguide.com/articles/w...inbow_trout.htm

This is copied from a email from one of my friends who is a Dentist, way up north.

Maybe enough people can complain and get a seperate catagory for this fish.

This rainbow trout from Lake Diffenbacher in Saskatchewan has been recognized by the IGFA as the new world record.

This is NOT a rainbow trout....it is a genetically manipulated sterile, triploid trout which has no real relation to the natural article. All of these large rainbows in this lake (and many other places) are escapees from a fish farming operation with these mutant trout which exists on Lake Diff.. Arguing otherwise is moot as the fish has been DNA tested and been absolutely proven to be one of the genetically altered rainbows.....should this count as a record? Heck the thing was only 8 years old and for the first 3 years of its life was hand fed in a pen....until it escaped. The hatchery eggs are heat treated at a specific point in development and it causes the fish to not have the normal 2N set of chromosomes but a 3N set. Resulting in the fish being sterile and not having any energy wasted in reproduction efforts....something native, wild and hatchery fish spend tremendous amounts of energy on. These mutants can grow to 18 inches and 3+ lbs in 12 months

My question is...should they count as records? Rainbow trout have one of the most storied histories for any fish and allowing genetically manipulated fish to replace those from natural and wild sources is just ethically wrong. But most of the line class records now are from these triploid rainbows....you can catch them on light line because they don't have remotely the fight in them of wild fish. Even the state of California acknowledges these fish in a different category. The IGFA is primarily a saltwater oriented organization.....otherwise there would be whining.

BTW, the triploidism and tremendous "unnatural" growth gives them there astounding girths.....small heads and fins.

[gonefishin]

For my part NO it is not and should not be be allowed to compete for record status with 'natural' fish. There should be a separate book for genetically altered species. It is kinda like a man having a sex change then competing in women's sports. It just ain't right. JMHO

[brianbarker]

I read about this trout in Outdoor Life, they said that ice tore through rearing tanks, something like that, and spilled all of these mutated trout out into the lake. I don't think they would count as a record, unless it was a seperate class for geneticaly altered fish.