Pond Boss Forums FISH & FISHING Fly Fishing & Other Fish Species Asian Carp

Kelly,

The stench would be terrible lol. I imagine they would have to have boats out on the water just for carp collection.

Cecil,

As an animal science student I can tell you that the truth as far as transgenics is concerned really is in the middle. The biotech corporations, which provide jobs for animal scientists, always have a profit motive when transgenics is involved.

For example: A new Phytase enzyme can be introduced into a pigs genome. The swine industry touts this as why the use of transgenics in animal agriculture can be beneficial. They boast that eutrophication of soils and pollution could fall a staggering 50% if they are allowed to use this "green transgenic technology" in their sows.

They expect the average citizen to recognize that this is good; however, what they do not want you to recognize is the profit motive behind this.

You have to think, why would they want to lower the phosphorous emissions from their swine? The answer is profit motive. What they aren't telling you is that the pigs will pollute the environment 50% less per head, which means they are going to double the number of pigs they can produce at that operation.

How does this help the environment if the overall pollution is the same? It doesn't, but it allows them to raise more animals and still be within EPA guidelines if the transgenic swine are allowed.

But on the other hand, this could lower the price of putting food on the table.




The most controversial front in transgenics is actually its use in fish.

Sure, you can make them sterile and say they wont escape, but they will.

Sure, research says that the transgenic fish are not as "fit" as native fish; however, their increased growth rates allow them to extract more nutrients out of an environment. They don't have to out-compete their "natural" same species cousins in order to kill off other species. They just have to eat so much that there isn't anything left for other animals.

Also, the "sterile" transgenic fish are not always sterile. Don't quote me on this, but something like 1 in every 250,000 that are sterilized can still produce viable offspring. It only takes 1 to ruin the gene pool of native species.

But on the other hand, we can use this same technology to control populations of unwanted species as Kelly has pointed out.

We can also use it to confer disease resistance to livestock.

With the bad, there is some good. I am usually stuck somewhere in the middle as far as transgenics is concerned. Maybe a little more towards giving the green light.