Fish fraud has been rampant on the seafood supply chain for years. And nothing that’s been tried has been able to stem the tide of species misrepresentation. At the same time, Salmon has taken an ele-vated place as a healthy fish native to North America…
But with this wave of fisher and wholesaler deception has come a whole sea of rumours and mis-information about where the salmon on your grocer’s seafood bar comes from.
The latest – and perhaps the most pervasive – falsehood involves salmon sold as ‘wild caught’, but which is actually a genetically-engineered species called AquaAdvantage.
What it is
Aqua Advantage is a species of Atlantic salmon into which a gene for growth from a Chinook Salmon was inserted. The result is an Atlantic Salmon which grows to market size much faster than the non-engineered truly wild variety.
The gene-altered species was produced at fish farms up and down the east coast of North America for some time. But was recently discontinued when the company behind it, Aqua Bounty, closed its last plant.
Even so…
The rumours persist, that AquaAdvantage salmon is still being sold, but labelled ‘wild caught’, to conceal its source. That’s clearly impossible, since the company closed down in bankruptcy in 2024.
“This company was propped up by the hype but had nothing of value to sell. Genetically engineered food is a losing investment,” said Lucy Sharratt, Coordinator of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network (CBAN).
More than GE objections
“The development of GE salmon violates Wild Salmon, and all the human and more-than-human commun-ities that Wild Salmon support. Wild Salmon underpin our cultural, spiritual, emotional, and physical well being as Indigenous Salmon Peoples,” stressed Carl Wassilie (left), a Yup’ik biologist, co-founder of Sal-monberry Tribal Associates, and organizer with the Block Corporate Salmon (BCS) anti-genetic engineer-ing campaign.
“We need to build on this victory to ensure that no other company takes up the colonial project of genetically engineering salmon,” he warned.
My take
It’s all well and good that cultural and GE activists should take up their figurative swords to battle ideas and products they don’t like.
But they shouldn’t be able to crush initiatives aimed at increasing the supply of a product such as salmon. Which is now in even shorter supply than when AquaBounty started, and costs as lot more as a result.
The facts are… Both the US and Canadian governments certified AquaAdvantage salmon safe and wholesome years ago, when it first appeared.
What a shame the innovation was killed by what was essentially a case of ‘mob madness’. Especially when those efforts relied on rumours and misinformation generated by well-meaning folks who don’t know the whole story. Much less, understand what GE does…
~ Maggie J.