Frankenfish

[flytyer57]

...what or who do they know in the FDA?

The cashier.

[troutfiend1985]

I just can't figure out why we don't practice sustainable harvest instead of creating some genetic mutant. I know it's all about the $$ but let the price of salmon reflect the amount of demand, low supply + high demand = high price.

The main concern I have is that these fish are going to get loose. And if they are bigger than wild salmon all hell will break loose and we wouldn't be able to do anything about it. There is no off switch on a living organism, and I don't think they can produce sterile fish with 100% certainty.

[jdmidwest]

I have not really seen the issue with Genetically Altered anything as a food source. I would think it would be more of a problem with Genetically Altered stuff crossbreeding with natural species. Modifying the natural selection of wild stock may create a problem. But how could it ever change the taste, texture, or quality of a food source? And I doubt if it would cause any harm to anyone that consumes it.

Anyone care to elaborate what the hoopla is regarding the consumption of a genetically altered animal or plant?

As far as genetically altering something, we have been doing it in a crude form for years with plants. Take apple trees, you graft a limb off a desirable species on a trunk of an apple species that is good for only a root stock. From the graft up, it is the apple species you choose, from the graft down, it is just a tree. If you take a desirable gene and graft it into the root stock of a fish to create a better fish, what is the difference?

[Outside Bend]

As far as genetically altering something, we have been doing it in a crude form for years with plants. Take apple trees, you graft a limb off a desirable species on a trunk of an apple species that is good for only a root stock. From the graft up, it is the apple species you choose, from the graft down, it is just a tree. If you take a desirable gene and graft it into the root stock of a fish to create a better fish, what is the difference?

Most of the grafts you're talking about occur between strains of the same species, or closely related species. The genetic modifications discussed in the article are between widely divergent species. To use your analogy, it'd be like grafting apple scion onto shortleaf pine rootstock.

It's a little difficult to explain, but grafted trees aren't much like the GM organisms discussed in the article. A grafted tree isn't a blend of genes like you'd find in a sexually reproduced organism (or these GM salmon), rather it's more like two discrete organisms in a symbiotic relationship- the scion wood producing food to nourish the rootstock, the rootstock providing disease resistance, drought tolerance, and food storage capacity. It makes sense, as the idea grafting is to produce fruit of uniform quality- i.e. without influence from other trees, including the rootstock.

Both the rootstock and the scion wood maintain separate genetics, and there's no influence of the rootstock on the fruit or seed produced.

Unlike these GM fish, in which genes from a very different organism (hagfish?), would be introduced into a salmon's genome, and would be able to be inherited by that salmon's progeny, including wild stocks. That's what makes me nervous.

And no worries Wayne, I don't get worked up about differences of opinion. Plus I went fishing, and all is well

[flytyer57]

I have not really seen the issue with Genetically Altered anything as a food source. I would think it would be more of a problem with Genetically Altered stuff crossbreeding with natural species. Modifying the natural selection of wild stock may create a problem. But how could it ever change the taste, texture, or quality of a food source? And I doubt if it would cause any harm to anyone that consumes it.

Anyone care to elaborate what the hoopla is regarding the consumption of a genetically altered animal or plant?

As far as genetically altering something, we have been doing it in a crude form for years with plants. Take apple trees, you graft a limb off a desirable species on a trunk of an apple species that is good for only a root stock. From the graft up, it is the apple species you choose, from the graft down, it is just a tree. If you take a desirable gene and graft it into the root stock of a fish to create a better fish, what is the difference?

I take it you don't watch science fiction/horror movies. If you did, you would know what could eventually happen with this genetic engineering crap. Sure they're just Hollywood movies gone gonzo, but then again, Hollywood movies also showed man walking on the moon in a day and time when it was thought to be totally impossible. Genetic engineering can lead to no good or it can be used to help us, such as stem cell research. Either way, we'd have to be able to carefully monitor any and all genetic engineering. Wouldn't want 60 foot salmon walking the streets eating us now do we?

[jdmidwest]

I thought the article was about FDA approval for human consumption, which I don't really see the issue of.

I realize the analogy of the apple tree was weak, but essentially the same. You graft a section of gene into a salmon gene and make a altered salmon with a desirable trait. You don't create a new species of fish, just a altered salmon.

And as for 60 foot salmon, if they are created, the MDC will probably trade some turkeys for them and we will get a chance to hunt them....

[Outside Bend]

I realize the analogy of the apple tree was weak, but essentially the same. You graft a section of gene into a salmon gene and make a altered salmon with a desirable trait. You don't create a new species of fish, just a altered salmon.

It may or may not be a new species, but saying it's the same as a wild salmon is like saying a splake is the same as a brook trout, or a mule is the same as a horse. You're combining the genetics of two very different organisms which couldn't spawn together in the wild, to create an organism which couldn't occur in nature.

The truth is, I'm not even opposed to genetic modification, provided the consumer is aware and has the choice to purchase other products.

What does concern me is the production mode, when these fish escape (anadromous fish have that nasty habit of trying to get out), and how they will interact with wild salmon populations. Will they breed with wild fish? Will those offspring possess foreign genes? Will these GM salmon be able to out-compete native stocks? Will offspring between GM and native fish survive?

As I said in another thread, the aquaculture industry hasn't even mastered the keeping-the-fish-in-the-tank technology, I'm really hesitant to green-light projects whose impact on the environment, and already decimated wild salmon stocks, we don't know.

[Kayser]

How about just putting the GM atlantics into the great lakes? There are very few natives left in them due to overfishing long ago, along with introduction of other non-natives (smelt, onchorynchus species, carp, etc.) This would be the best option- fairly isolated from the Eastern US where the native populations are, and could interact with other non-native salmons already there.

This is in no way like grafting apple trees, or even cross breeding- this is a process somewhat like a chemical reaction used to actually add DNA to the genome of the organism (lengthen chromosomes). Who knows what effect this will have on backfeed and gene regulation, although since they have already produced fish, it doesn't seem to have much of one. And this could never happen through selective breeding, either- the fish are just too different (salmo of the Atlantics, onchorynchus of the chinooks.)

The food issue is not very concerning to the general public, but the possible ecological repercussions to cute or fun animals are huge. This is how society works. Example- nobody gets up in arms about farmers killing off native flora to plant their GM mutant strain of hyper-resistant corn or soybean. And they don't have a problem eating it, either. They might just be ignorant to these facts, but I doubt it.

And for Christ's sake- don't take your scientific knowledge from movies. Please. It harms society and the advancement of technology. Plus it's usually wrong. And who likes being wrong?

Rob

[flytyer57]

What does concern me is the production mode, when these fish escape (anadromous fish have that nasty habit of trying to get out), and how they will interact with wild salmon populations. Will they breed with wild fish? Will those offspring possess foreign genes? Will these GM salmon be able to out-compete native stocks? Will offspring between GM and native fish survive?

As I said in another thread, the aquaculture industry hasn't even mastered the keeping-the-fish-in-the-tank technology, I'm really hesitant to green-light projects whose impact on the environment, and already decimated wild salmon stocks, we don't know.

First of all, why did they find an Atlantic salmon in the Pacific Ocean? Did it swim there from the Atlantic (which I seriously dobt)? Or did it escape from a farm pen located in a river?

Why can't they raise them (farm fish) in pens like the feds and state do to raise hatchery fish? Next to the water maybe, but not in pens IN the water? This would pretty much eliminate the possibility of escape into our waters and cross breeding with wild fish (which there are very few left of thanks to stocking efforts.) Or just plain wreaking havoc like the asian carp?

[Al Agnew]

Atlantic salmon and chinook salmon are only distantly related, and cannot interbreed in the wild. The ocean pout, the other fish whose genes are being spliced into this fish, is a totally unrelated species. It is equivalent to whitetails and beavers. Or humans and rats. So please get off this idea that the process is equivalent to breeding better tomatoes. With selective breeding, you combine the genes (in a natural process) of two strains of the same species, looking for a result that has the best characteristics of both strains. Both strains are not only edible but equally unlikely to cause allergies, etc. With this kind of genetic manipulation, you are taking the genes of in this case three totally different species and combining them in a lab, something that is totally unnatural. While there is no proof that such a fish will cause human health problems, there is certainly no guarantee that it won't. It's a big experiment with us as the guinea pigs.

But as the linked article in the original article said, the environmental concerns are a lot more worrisome. We've already seen declines in salmon stocks in the Pacific due to the escape of pen-raised salmon. This is a whole leap farther into the unknown.