Henry Frankenstein: Look! It’s moving. It’s alive. It’s alive… It’s alive, it’s moving, it’s alive, it’s alive, it’s alive, it’s alive, IT’S ALIVE!
Victor Moritz: Henry – In the name of God!
Henry Frankenstein: Oh, in the name of God! Now I know what it feels like to be God!
As I watch this famous scene from the movie Frankenstein (1931) I think, how unnatural it would be to give life to a creature made from the pieces of so many. I may think, impossible, how can man seek to defy nature in attempt improve something that is already perfect. Then as my ADD kicks in overdrive I pull out my computer and completely lose my train of thought. While I’m meandering through the Internet I am brought right back to that moment… I mutter…. Impossible.
I am transfixed. I try in vain to turn my eyes away but I can’t… The headline reads: Fish or Frankenfish? The FDA debates the issue. WHAT! I keep staring in horror. The producer of the Frankenfish, wants their product to be labeled the same way as an ocean caught salmon.
Outrage, this is not natural.
After my initial shock, I do a little research on the subject. Before I get to the Genetic Modification of Salmon, let me first discuss why man has been pushed to the point that he has to build an Atlantic Salmon.
First, we have to look at population. In the last 50 years the world’s population has seen an absolute population explosion, from 1950 -2005 the world has gone from 2.5 billion people to about 6.5 billion, an increase of 4 billion people. To put this in context, in 1750 the population was about 760 million in 1800 it reached about 1 billion, an increase of 240 million people. We are truly in a time of explosive growth. Which is largely due to improved healthcare, improved agriculture, and improved fishing technology. This population expansion has resulted in a dramatic increase in pressure on global fisheries.
Global fisheries have been on the decline for the last 50 years with some scientists claiming that we could have a full-fledged ecosystem collapse in the next 50. This would be disastrous because a majority of the world’s population depends on fish as their principal source of protein. But for the purpose of this blog post, I will focus on US Atlantic Salmon catches. I will briefly go over the salmon lifecycle.
The Atlantic salmon along with other salmonids are a unique type of fish. They are born in fresh water rivers, where they live for a few years, before they swim out to sea. This is why they are unique; they have the ability to live in both fresh and salt water. While at sea these salmon born in the cool waters of the North East can travel as far as Russia before returning to the stream in which they were conceived, to spawn and start the cycle all over again. When they return, the females lay eggs, the males pass over them and fertilize them and then they die. It is a bittersweet ending to their amazing lives, but it is the life nature carved out for them.
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| This is a graph of Atlantic Salmon Returning to rivers from 1965 -2005 |
So why? Do you ask are we in need of Genetically Modified Salmon. This is because the Atlantic Salmon population has been in a free fall since 1985. The annual catch has fallen to about 50% of historical norms. This statistic alone shows that there is something truly wrong with the way we fish. The government has attempted in vain to curb this free-fall, so as a solution companies like AquaAdvantage have stepped in with a foolproof solution, Genetically Modified Salmon. Ha.
Their solution, genetic modification, is complex but I will do my best to explain it. Genetic Modification is the manipulation of a genetic sequence by adding in genes with desirable traits. The way they successfully twist the genome of the salmon is by using Recombinant DNA, rDNA, which is injected into the egg and recombines with DNA of the embryo injecting the desired gene into the DNA. They propose adding a growth gene from the Pacific Chinook salmon as well as genetic material from the ocean pout. This allows the fish to grow faster as well as grow in both the winter and the summer. They also claim that the resultant fish from this mad science are 100% sterile, however, the FDA indicates that up to 5% of the eggs may be fertile. This is very bad. If even one of these GMO’s got out and found its way to the ocean and interbred, it would mark the end of the Atlantic Salmon population. A population that has been around longer than Homo Sapiens.
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| Ocean Pout |
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| Atlantic Salmon, Pretty Similar... |
IT’S ALIVE! These words make the hair on the back of my head neck on end. I mean really, do we have to manipulate genetics that are the product of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, just because we can’t get overfishing under control. Do we have to keep making the same mistakes time and time again? I just don’t get it. There are alternatives to creating a Frankenfish. Sustainable Aquaculture is probably the best example. This is the practice of growing salmon populations in large pens out at sea. There are issues that face the expansion of aquaculture in the US, but why cant we use resources to develop technology to grow normal Atlantic Salmon, instead of spending all of our money, trying to build an entirely new fish. We clearly have the scientific prowess, I mean come on, we found a way to inject genes into DNA, I’m sure we can figure out a way to grow fish sustainably.
You know the taste of salmon its oily and delicious. Don’t let GMO’s take the place of the fish that I and you have come to enjoy.
Sincerely,
That Guy
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