P.E.I. farm awaits word from FDA on world's first genetically modified salmon

Canwest News Service
February 11, 2009

An aquaculture company that operates a farm in Fortune, P. E. I., could market the world's first genetically modified salmon. Aqua Bounty Farms CEO Ron Stotish said yesterday he is hopeful the U. S. Food and Drug Administration will approve this year the company's genetically modified hybrid of an Atlantic salmon crossed with the Pacific chinook salmon. Mr. Stotish said the fish is made by adding a growth hormone from the chinook to the Atlantic salmon to allow it to grow much faster than the regular, wild salmon. "If a year-old unmodified salmon weighs 70 or 100 grams, then a year-old [modified] salmon would weigh a kilogram or slightly over," he said, adding that the fully grown genetically modified fish does not end up larger than the natural fish. If the salmon is approved by the FDA for distribution in North America, it will the first of its kind on the market.

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