From
Wired.com:
On September 5, Saskatchewan fisherman Sean Konrad caught a 48-pound, world-record rainbow trout. The fish came from Lake Diefenbaker, where trout genetically engineered to grow extra-big escaped from a fish farm nine years ago...
Technically known as triploids, they’re designed with three sets of chromosomes, making them sterile and channeling energies normally spent reproducing towards growth.
In 2007, on a message board of the International Game Fish Association, the angling world’s record- and ethics-keeping body, some fishermen argued that triploids were unnatural, as divorced from the sport’s history as Barry Bonds’ home runs were from Hank Aaron’s.
The IGFA refused to make a distinction between natural and GM fish. Neither would they distinguish between species caught in their traditional waters and those introduced into new, growth-friendly environments, such as largemouth bass whose extra-large ancestors were imported from Florida to California in the 1960s.
But to purists, there was a difference between transplantation and outright manufacture.
The Konrad brothers’ response on the message board was curt: “Stop crying and start fishing.”
Big Gary, the Museum's Deputy Curator in Charge of Fish, says: "I'm voting 'cheat' on this one, but it's an interesting debate nonetheless."
Comments
I grew along Lake Michigan and remember people catching world record fish (including rainbow trout) as a kid which does not seem to happen any more (people seem to get "state record" fish these days). I was wondering why no more "world records" as I am not much of an angler myself and I guess GM is the reason.
Follow this if you can: The size of fish in a body of water is related to the size of other fish in the same body of water, due to the fcat that smaller fish are kept small by a combination of physical dominance, chemical signals and the larger fish eating more food. Remove the karger fish and the remainder have a chance to grow until they are larger enough to becoem dominant, and of course fewer fish in an area means that they cna spread out and becoem larger without meeting other fish as often and becoming dominated.
Leaving the larger specimens in the ecosystem by catch and relaese will lower the naverage size of fish in the population over time: However, it does maintain a high population density so people can catch fish more often.
Is taht clear? Sometimes my expalnataions suffer form lack of clarity due to technical phrasing.
The Triploid Chinook has been planted in Lake Huron and have wire tags in their heads for identification of plant site.
This picture shows a nice stringer of Lake Michigan Salmon with a triploid as part of the catch: