Will it happen? Will the king of fish, the noble, glamorous salmon become another commercially-available genetically modified (GM) species? And if so, will you eat it?
The GM salmon grows twice as fast as its wild relative. Its genes have been artificially modified to include DNA from the Pacific Chinook and from an eel-like species so that the resulting fish keeps growing all year long. AquaBounty Technologies, the Massachusetts company behind the project, has waited over ten years for this. On Monday, the FDA held a public consultation on how to label the GM salmon so that the public is aware of what kind of fish it will be buying. A detailed scientific review didn’t find anything detrimental to human health or to the environment. It seems to be just a matter of time before we can buy GM salmon in the supermarket.
Critics fear that if the GM salmon escapes the confines of their farms, they may breed with wild salmon causing havoc in the natural food chain. Salmon feeds an enormous variety of animals, from humans to grizzly bears and eagles. Those fears are unfounded. The farms are inland, far from river ways. And even if they do escape or are placed in wild waters (ecoterrorism?), the GM salmon won’t interbreed since its eggs have been designed to develop into sterile females. So, no GM offspring is possible.
Read the complete story from NPR.