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California Bans Genegineered Fish
Cheeko writes "California regulators have announced that they are blocking the sale of genetically engineered fish. The arguments of the regulators seem to echo some of those discussed earlier here."
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It makes sense, we just banned another genetically modified fish not two months ago.
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
Most of Californians live near the coast. I'm in Northern California, and it takes me 5-6 hours to get out of the state (Reno, NV). It takes people in Los Angeles 4 hours to get out (Las Vegas, NV). I guess it's possible for people in San Diego to buy them in Mexico, but then they have to go through customs which would confiscate them.
Californians will have the option of buying them out-of-state, but it's way too much of a hassle IMHO just to have a few glowing fish.
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More dramatic changes, as you put it, could also mean more dramatic results. In many cases, when changes (like cross-breeding types of corn) occur over a long period of time, nature has a better chance to adapt and "catch" errors before they get too drastic.
If an experiment that involves genetic engineering goes wrong, it will go wrong fast, and nobody can foresee the effects of that because there is absolutely no prior incident it could be compared to. That kind of scares me.
Their Mission Statement:
The Mission of the Department of Fish and Game is to manage California's diverse fish, wildlife, and plant resources, and the habitats upon which they depend, for their ecological values and for their use and enjoyment by the public.
The Department of Fish and Game maintains native fish, wildlife, plant species and natural communities for their intrinsic and ecological value and their benefits to people. This includes habitat protection and maintenance in a sufficient amount and quality to ensure the survival of all species and natural communities. The department is also responsible for the diversified use of fish and wildlife including recreational, commercial, scientific and educational uses.
Nope, morality control is not their job. This fish has been demonstrated to NOT be a threat to the CA wildlife, is perfectly safe for 49 other states and the Federal Government. This fish is the first (that I know of) publicly available GM pet. I see that has having EXTENSIVE positive recreational, commercial, scientific and educational uses.
But the commission is apparently too squeamish to see that, and said no. Even though they could use this fish's existence to further the ideals in their mission statement. It's sad, really.
Moo.
The fish don't really glow (they're not luminescent), they're flourescent which means that they only light up when ultraviolet light hits them. Flourescent fish can survive just fine and I don't think they're especially easy targets. I'd be willing to bet that some predators would even be turned off by the color.
As a Californian, I'm glad we won't have them here. Let them experiment on the ecosystem somewhere else and then, in ten or twenty years, allow them in if there hasven't been any problems. There have just been way too many environmental disasters caused by introducing species (engineered or not) into new environments. If you want colorful fish, buy some Neon Tetras or a Jack Dempsey or just go saltwater where there are plenty of flourescent fish to choose from.
If just 1/3 of the cattle grazing ground were switched to producing vegetable crops, such as soybeans, starvation in the world would be wiped out. there is no need to genetically alter anything. People just need to be less reliant on an unecessary food source.
eesh, give me a break. I always hear this argument. The problem is NOT the amount of food in the world. The problem is distribution. There is enough food on this planet to feed everyone, there have been plenty of studies on that. The problem is getting all this food to every part of the world, and still making a profit (no money => no food).
I didn't even read this whole article, it was just the first one that I googled... http://www.ifpri.org/2020/briefs/number19.htm
The gene *will* escape into the wild. In every single case studied, it escaped despite all precautions in production settings. Lab settings were more successful in keeping the lid on.
These are PLANTS we are talking about. Obviously it's much more difficult to contain plant pollen than it is to contain a zebrafish.
Furthermore, plants can reproduce much faster than zebrafish or other animals. Bt corn is an extreme case: it has been SPECIFICALLY engineered to survive better than normal corn in the wild.
Zebrafish are very fragile and an aquarium variety will not last very long in the wild. It will become sick, die, get eaten, or all of the above. I can not believe how many people forget this simple fact.
We know that nature can handle "natural" disasters because it was handeling them long before we existed. Some natural disasters may even be necessary to keep the system operating. It isn't so clear with man made changes. There is a severe shortage of precident
Then there is the issue of biodiversity. Every extinction we cause means a species, a habitat, an ecosystem will no longer exist for us to study. All those solved problems that we will never know. Oh, nature is resiliant. It is almost certain that no matter how badly we fuck things up, nature and it's biodiversity will recover eventually. But nature is also slow. Many of us would rather not wait the millions of years that nature would take to recover from our abuses.
i read jurassic park, the fish would just spontaneously switch sex.
That's a possibility I suppose. There are several species of fish (IIRC) on the Great Barrier Reef that can do this. In some the top female will become a male and in others it's the other way around.