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I don't know what I'm supposed to be scared of here. The concept of genetically engineered food doesn't put me off in the least, and the risk of these salmon escaping to the wild doesn't sound particularly dangerous to me. I know there're lots of "unknown unknowns" when it comes to messing with the natural order, but if for some reason they wind up thriving and supplanting the existing salmon population then, what, we wind up with faster-growing wild salmon? I'm sure the local fishermen won't mind.

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My concern, oddly enough, would be copyright. Suppose the AquAdvantage Salmon escapes into the wild, reproduced, and flourishes. Suppose that it flourishes so well that it displaces the native population of salmon. Then, finally, suppose that Aqua Bounty starts suing everyone and everything who attempts to fish, catch, or farm these salmon, which are now the only thing left.

Such behavior would not be unheard of. See similar accusations against Monsanto: http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/pages/gm-seed-accidentally...

My concern, oddly enough, would be copyright.

You mean patent infringement.

First of all, it would be patent protections, not copyright. Huge difference. Second, I highly doubt anyone would succeed with such a dubious legal strategy. Catching fish in the wild with your patented genes in them is not a violation of your patent rights - who is the violator? The fish?

What happens when you sell the fish?

You earn money from the consumer?

You get sued.

"That case concerned Percy Schmeiser, who discovered that canola growing on his farm in 1997 was Roundup resistant. He had initially discovered that some canola growing by a roadside along one of his fields was Roundup resistant when he was killing weeds along the road; this led him to spray a three- to four‑acre section of his adjacent field and 60% of the canola survived. Schmeiser harvested the seed from the surviving, Roundup resistant plants, and planted the seed in 1998. Monsanto sued Schmeiser for patent infringement for the 1998 planting. Schmeiser claimed that because the 1997 plants grew from seed that was pollinated with pollen blown into his field from neighboring fields, he owned the harvest and was entitled to do with it whatever he wished, including saving the seeds from the 1997 harvest and planting them in 1998."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_legal_cases

edit: TL;DR: Monsanto sues farmers, not seeds ;)

Schmeiser was found to have deliberately created a Roundup-Ready crop --- he weaned out the non-RR crops by spraying them with glyphosate, preserved the patent-encumbered plants, and then cultivated them so that his fields were ultimately 95+% encumbered, in such a way that he could spray them with Roundup at any point he felt it would be profitable and only then pay the licensing fees.

>he weaned out the non-RR crops by spraying them with glyphosate, preserved the patent-encumbered plants, and then cultivated them so that his fields were ultimately 95+% encumbered

this is how typical selection works. And the same way like the antibiotic resistance develops.

You should just read the trial documentation (there is a shitload of it just a Google search away). Suffice it to say that the trial pretty conclusively established that Schmeiser deliberately created an unauthorized glyphosate crop.

You might not care; that's fine. This link might save us an unproductive round-trip:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10604755

He shouldn't have to pay any fees at all, they were his plants from his normal harvest; it's not his fault roundup ready seeds blew into his fields. Being able to sue someone because your shit got out into the wild and happened to benefit someone else is absurd.

There's an intellectually coherent argument that Monsanto should not be able to patent the system of glyphosate-resistence at all. I'm assuming that's where you're coming from.

But I'm not engaging with that argument.

All I'm saying is: the thing that does not happen, but that everyone on the Internet seems to think happens all the time, is Monsanto seeds blowing onto some random field, and then Monsanto suing you when you sell the resulting crop.

Everyone who has been sued by Monsanto has taken active steps to capitalize on their "unauthorized" seeds.

> is Monsanto seeds blowing onto some random field, and then Monsanto suing you when you sell the resulting crop.

> Everyone who has been sued by Monsanto has taken active steps to capitalize on their "unauthorized" seeds.

Those are the same thing. That's what farmers do with crops, they capitalize on them by selling them.

That depends. If I have hundred dollar bills that the wind blows onto your property, are you allowed to keep them, or are you required by law to report found property? I don't see this as all that different, except that it may displace his current crop, so he may be able to sue (someone) for hardship caused by improper containment. Local laws may apply[1].

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost,_mislaid,_and_abandoned_p...

If it blew into my $100 bill farm, and I could not possibly be expected to know some random $100 bill out the thousands I put there is yours, then yes I should be allowed to keep it. When seeds blow onto a farm, that isn't lost property, that's nature and it's indistinguishable from it not happening. You can't expect a farmer to notice stray seeds and turn them in to lost and found.

They weren't from a normal harvest. He specifically used round up on it to only get the patented seed. He purposely made round up ready seed.

So what? He didn't steal those seeds, and the crops grown from them don't belong to Monsanto, but to him, he should be able to capitalize on their mistake. Monsanto is evil and this nonsense of patenting nature needs to be abolished for good. What the patent system has become is absurd, it needs abolished as well.

Every time this Monsanto story comes up, people leave out the part where Monsanto has only sued people who grew Roundup-Ready crops and then sprayed them with glyphosate, which would kill non-Roundup-Ready crops.

> the risk of these salmon escaping to the wild doesn't sound particularly dangerous to me.

It should. You can think of a GM species as akin to introduce a foreign species to a new environment. Except in this case, instead of coming from some other continent, it came from a lab.

So, how does introducing foreign species go? Often, it's fine. But often, it's catastrophically destructive.

Think kudzu in the Southeast, rabbits and cane toads in Australia, killer bees, carp in the Mississippi, and rats pretty much everywhere they've been introduced.

A new, aggressive species that the ecosystem hasn't had time to get used to can decimate an area and cause species to go extinct before they have time to adapt.

Except these are sterile females, farmed in inland pools[1]. I agree in general that we should consider the possibility of GM species interbreeding with or out-competing existing species, but this case seems exceptionally safe.

1: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...

The risk of this GM species escaping into the environment is infinitesimally small.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/11/fda-approves-first-gm...

Key part:

"The agency also assessed potential environmental effects and the proposed containment method. In accordance with the FDA’s approval, the fish must be kept in inland tanks, specifically tanks at two facilities—one in Canada and the other in Panama. The Canadian facility will keep the breeding stock, and the Panama site will be used to raise the fish to market-size.

Both facilities have multiple, redundant physical barriers to keep the fish and eggs from escaping, the agency noted. Tanks have covers, nets, jump fences, covered drains, and closed septic systems. In addition, conditions of natural water systems surrounding the Panama site, particularly the warm temperatures, are expected to be lethal to the salmon. The Panama site will raise all-female, sterile fish."

What if they escape, thrive and naturally select for some advantage that has the side effect of making them taste like shit?

Then we make GE shit fish that taste good!

Honestly, that's pretty naive when we're talking about biology and complex ecosystems.

Yes, there are a lot of unknown unknowns, as you stated. So, not quite sure how you're concluding it's all good.

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