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Battling Fish Fraud With DNA Testing

Posted by samzenpus on Friday March 23, 2012 @06:44AM from the these-are-not-the-eels-you-are-looking-for dept.

itwbennett writes "High demand, high prices, and nearly identical cheaper alternatives is a recipe for fraud. Eel fraud, that is. This has led Japanese researchers to develop a method to cheaply and quickly batch-test DNA by taking small tissue samples from thousands of eels. 'If a non-local eel is found in a batch, more tests will be performed to find the guilty foreigner.'"

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Re:Not just Eel by Misanthrope · 2012-03-23 07:05 · Score: 3, Informative

That's not true, the color comes from the same pigment astaxanthin. The amount in the feed determines the color and can be tailored by the farm. Admittedly farmed salmon is horrible and is a bit like raising lions for food...
Re:Not just Eel by rtaylor · 2012-03-23 07:34 · Score: 3, Informative

In Japan the opposite was happening just as frequently. The endangered accidentally caught fish was being sold as a commonly available fish.

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Rod Taylor