• picture
  • picture
  • picture
  • picture
Public Radio's Environmental News Magazine (follow us on Google News)

Fishy Tale

Air Date: Week of

Paul Greenberg with a wild Alaskan King Salmon. (Photo: Jon Rowley)

The Food and Drug Administration is poised to make a decision about whether to allow genetically modified salmon in the marketplace. Paul Greenberg, author of the new book "Four Fish," says it's one of many decisions the government has to make about the future of salmon that will have a huge effect on our environment and our last wild food.



Transcript

YOUNG: Well, obviously Ron Stotish has his own fish to fry in this case. But whether or not consumers find the whole idea of genetic modification palatable is a whole other kettle of fish. Paul Greenburg wrote the new book “Four Fish,” which tells the story of salmon, tuna, bass and cod, and our reliance on them as food. He has something else on his plate.

GREENBERG: So, Uncle Sam walks into a fish restaurant, takes off his star-spangled hat, and asks the waiter what’s on special.

“Uh, today we have a genetically-modified Atlantic salmon, spliced with Pacific salmon growth gene and modulated by a regulator protein from an Ocean Pout.”

"Uh, ok, anything else?"

“Not much, I’m afraid, just a wild Sockeye from the pristine unpolluted waters of Bristol Bay, Alaska. What’ll it be?”

If you were in Uncle Sam’s seat, you’d surely chose the wild salmon over the modified one, but our government, forever at odds with itself when it comes to figuring out the puzzle of the American seafood supply, is leaning towards the transgenic. At this very moment, the US Food and Drug Administration is close to approving an engineered Atlantic salmon that grows twice as fast as an unmodified fish. If North America’s existing salmon farms all switch to growing modified animals, we could have about a quarter billion more pounds of salmon in the market every year.

Sounds good on the surface, but seen in the larger context of American fisheries, it doesn’t make much sense. While the government seeks to boost farmed salmon supplies through transgenics, it is simultaneously letting wild salmon go to pot. At the headwaters of Bristol Bay, Alaska, the spawning grounds of perhaps the most productive wild salmon runs left on earth, the international mining giant, Anglo American plans to construct pebble mine. The largest open pit copper and gold mine in the US. Mines of this nature are notoriously bad for fish. Just this summer, a copper mine failure in China’s Ting River killed millions of fish. A similar disaster in the Bristol Bay fishery could mean the destruction of around a quarter of a billion pounds of fish.


Paul Greenberg with a wild Alaskan King Salmon. (Photo: Jon Rowley)

Precariously, about the same amount of salmon that Aquabounty hopes to produce with its transgenic fish. US Environmental Protection Agency has the power to stop Pebble Mine through the Clean Water Act, but has so far failed to act. More transgenic fish, less wild fish. You have to scratch your head at a government that’s planning that kind of seafood menu for it’s citizens. Instead of endorsing a risky experiment in genetic salmon modification, wouldn’t it be better if our leaders protected wild salmon habitat? In the end, we’d have just as much fish on our plates, and a safer environment to boot. Personally, I’d hate to go into a restaurant and have a transgenic fish be the only salmon option on the menu. If that ends up being the case, I might just order the chicken.

YOUNG: Paul Greenberg is the author of Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food.

 

Links

2010 Bristol Bay Sockeye Salmon Forecast

World Salmon Production and Consumption from WWF report "The Great Salmon Run"

 

Living on Earth wants to hear from you!

Living on Earth
62 Calef Highway, Suite 212
Lee, NH 03861
Telephone: 617-287-4121
E-mail: comments@loe.org

Newsletter [Click here]

Donate to Living on Earth!
Living on Earth is an independent media program and relies entirely on contributions from listeners and institutions supporting public service. Please donate now to preserve an independent environmental voice.

Newsletter
Living on Earth offers a weekly delivery of the show's rundown to your mailbox. Sign up for our newsletter today!

Sailors For The Sea: Be the change you want to sea.

Creating positive outcomes for future generations.

Innovating to make the world a better, more sustainable place to live. Listen to the race to 9 billion

The Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment: Committed to protecting and improving the health of the global environment.

Contribute to Living on Earth and receive, as our gift to you, an archival print of one of Mark Seth Lender's extraordinary wildlife photographs. Follow the link to see Mark's current collection of photographs.

Buy a signed copy of Mark Seth Lender's book Smeagull the Seagull & support Living on Earth