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dam-l salmon wild and not so wild
This may be of interest to some of you...
cheers!
-Dianne
Forwarded message:
From rwolfson@concentric.net Sun Oct 3 10:25:01 1999
posted by Tom Lalley, Program Director, Environmental Media Services
tlalley@ems.org
MAIL ON SUNDAY
September 19, 1999 Pg. 43
Frankenfish wiping out wild salmon
William Lowther
STRAINS of farm-bred fish developed to grow fat quickly are threatening
to drive Britain's majestic wild salmon into extinction. Millions of
modified fish have escaped into the Atlantic from offshore farms in Europe
and America.
And the new strains are mating with wild salmon, polluting their gene pool
and producing hybrids that can't survive in the open ocean. Don
Staniford, of the Scottish office of Friends of the Earth, said yesterday:
'Wild salmon are nearly extinct in a number of Scottish regions and rivers
where they used to be plentiful. There's certainly a link between the
decline of our wild salmon and the escape of these farm-bred fish. It's
genetic pollution.'
Sue Scott, of the Atlantic Salmon Federation in New Brunswick, Canada,
added: 'The farm fish are bred to be fat and lazy. Their genes have been
manipulated by crossbreeding to produce a fish that grows quickly. 'They
are kept in huge pens in the open ocean off the coast of New Brunswick and
the coast of Maine in the States. And over the last few years millions of
them have escaped into the Atlantic. '
Wild salmon are muscular and built to make a long voyage into the ocean and
back.But over the longer term the farm fish can't survive in the ocean and
neither can the offspring of wild salmon and farm fish. The resulting fish
can't make the rigorous migration and that's one of the reasons the wild
salmon are being wiped out.'
Selective breeding with salmon strains from all over the world means that
farm fish are much bigger than their wild cousins. 'In fact, they're so
big they look like footballs,' said federation president Bill Taylor. And
scientists believe female wild salmon choose the bigger males for mating.
Miss Scott blamed unrestrained commercialism, saying: 'The problem is that
governments have let salmon farming industry grow without regulation.' In
the US, two major environmental groups Defenders of Wildlife and Trout
Unlimited are suing the Federal Government in an effort to force them to
put Atlantic salmon on the endangered species list.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Richard Wolfson, PhD
Consumer Right to Know Campaign,
for Mandatory Labelling and Long-term
Testing of all Genetically Engineered Foods,
500 Wilbrod Street
Ottawa, ON Canada K1N 6N2
tel. 613-565-8517 fax. 613-565-1596
email: rwolfson@concentric.net