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Location: Oswego, IL | This just made Yahoo front page.
In an age of biotechnological juicing, not even the easygoing pastime of fishing is free from controversies over artificial enhancement.
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.
The previous world record was held by Sean’s twin brother Adam, who pulled a 43-pound, 10-ounce rainbow trout from Lake Diefenbaker in 2007. That catch sparked online debate over the legitimacy of Lake Diefenbaker’s farm-born, genetically-engineered rainbows. 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.”
Now they’ve caught another record-breaking trout. Or have they?
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Posts: 32955
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | I'd say they have. Let's genetically engineer some muskies and release them in MY lake X, please.
I have zero problem fishing hybrid bluegills, either. Big buggers, those can be. |
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Location: Oswego, IL | Exactly Worrall, just imagine if a muskie that got that same juice! a bluegill would be the size of a tennis racket! |
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Posts: 215
Location: Wisconsin | He caught the fish, didn't load it with crap to make it heavier. I say the record should stand.
Now the thought of a muskie on "Vitamin S" sounds interesting, imagine a blue gill that was big enough to hit a bulldog?? |
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Posts: 4053
Location: Land of the Musky | Heres to the 139lb musky in 9 years!!!  |
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Posts: 16632
Location: The desert | Got to watch out for the trout elitists. They wont like any of your catches if you don't have the correct salmon colored Colombia surf shirt, khaki's and sun hat. They make musky elitists look like red necks. |
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Posts: 57
| sworrall - 9/16/2009 6:27 PM
I'd say they have. Let's genetically engineer some muskies and release them in MY lake X, please.
I have zero problem fishing hybrid bluegills, either. Big buggers, those can be.
Steve, in 2008 North Carolina produced 1500 muskie fingerings that where tripliods. They were produced as a test for potential future stockings. The Biologist wanted to control the population with no chance of future reproduction. However the fingerlings were donated to another state for stocking. After seeing this, sure wish they where placed in my Lake X.
Edited by CLARK1 9/16/2009 8:23 PM
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Posts: 2865
Location: Brookfield, WI | So these fish are engineered to be sterile, correct? So they don't breed out of control and endanger the ecosystem?
So were the dinosaurs on Isla Nublar and Isla Sorna. And we all know how that turned out. Nature always finds a way.
Kevin |
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| Seems like a genetically altered fish should be a different species. Why not just have a separate record if you can distinguish them? |
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Posts: 2361
| The IGFA cannot make that decision, because if it were to decide on a classification like that, every potential record would now be held up as a potential triploid or there would be a whispering campaign against all future records. History is a big enough mess already when it comes to fish records. |
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Posts: 1169
Location: New Hope MN | Reminds me of the super cow youtube video. Can you imagine..? I would think twice about washing the pike slime off my hands! |
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| That is one ugly fish. |
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Location: Grand Rapids, MI | firstsixfeet - 9/16/2009 11:45 PM The IGFA cannot make that decision, because if it were to decide on a classification like that, every potential record would now be held up as a potential triploid or there would be a whispering campaign against all future records. History is a big enough mess already when it comes to fish records. AND... who's to say all previous records, of any species, weren't a genetic freak? I can't imagine them genetically testing every record past and present. |
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| I don't care if it is a frankenfish. I would sure like to catch one. Someone, please do this for muskies!
Brian
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Posts: 413
Location: Madison WI | Tone - 9/16/2009 7:01 PM
Now the thought of a muskie on "Vitamin S" sounds interesting, imagine a blue gill that was big enough to hit a bulldog??
Don't think it won't happen, I had a 13-14 inch pike demolish a dawg last night, and biggest gill I have caught in the last couple of yrs was 11-12", they may be able to hit it, but fitting it in there mouth would be the true challenge. |
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| LOL. The fish reminds me of a line from Arnold in Predator. |
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