"My tribe, the Winnemem Wintu, is a traditional salmon people that come from Mount Shasta in California, and we learned long ago from coyote it’s dangerous to mimic the Creator. It’s a lesson yet to be learned by AquaBounty, the Massachusetts company behind the genetically engineered salmon likely to be approved by the FDA this month.

The GE salmon, which many have nicknamed Frankenfish, have been spliced with a poutfish gene and a growth hormone so it’ll grow twice as fast. While the FDA is assessing their safety based on AquaBounty’s own flawed studies, anyone with common sense can see Frankenfish poses a great threat to wild salmon.

If they escape into the ocean, they’ll compete with wild salmon for food, contaminate the gene pool and possibly cause extinctions. This comes at a time when Pacific salmon runs have recorded historically low numbers, and when many, including my tribe, fear they may soon be lost forever.

AquaBounty is like coyote building with sticks, and the GE salmon are as shoddily constructed as coyote’s children.

Thus, we find it ironic that the government is fast-tracking the GE salmon yet skeptical about our own unorthodox but far safer plan to return Chinook salmon to our river, the McCloud. "

Get the Story:
Caleen Sisk-Franco: To Restore Salmon, Follow the Creator’s Plan, Not Frankenfish (California Progress Report 9/27)

Related Stories:
FDA holds public hearing on plan for genetically modified salmon (9/21)