Canada sued over approval of genetically modified salmon scheme
Source: The Guardian
Canada sued over approval of genetically modified salmon scheme
Oliver Milman
Tuesday 17 November 2015 11.30 GMT
Environmental groups are taking the Canadian government to court in an attempt to halt the production of genetically modified salmon eggs, claiming that the process risks a “huge live experiment” with the genetic makeup of all wild Atlantic salmon.
A US firm has been granted permission to produce fertile salmon eggs in Canada and ship them to Panama, where they will be grown in the hope that the fish will be given approval for human consumption in the US and Canada.
AquaBounty Technologies, which is based in Massachusetts, insists that its genetically modified fish pose no threat to the environment and will be kept in special disease- and antibiotic-free conditions. The modified fish can grow to the size of wild salmon with 75% less feed, reducing the product’s carbon footprint by up to 25 times, AquaBounty claims.
However, environmentalists will head to Canada’s federal court on Tuesday to argue that there is a real risk of mixing between the GM salmon and wild fish and that the Canadian government was wrong to approve the production of the eggs in Prince Edward Island.
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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/nov/17/canada-sued-genetically-modified-salmon-scheme-approval-environmental-groups
