Wednesday, August 28, 2013

28/08/13: Salmon special - Farmed salmon makes 'eco-friendly list'; reducing interbreeding; salmon scholarships in NZ

Farmed salmon has been given 'eco-friendly' credentials by an aquarium labeling scheme the for the first time.

Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch programme which gives fish a red, yellow or green label according to the their sustainability and environmental impact, has added Verlasso farmed salmon from Chile to its yellow list.

This means Verlasso salmon is deemed a 'good alternative' to green listed fish which are the 'best choice'.
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Interbreeding between farmed and wild salmon is an ongoing problem but a solution may be in sight thanks to research in Norway.

Part funded by the Research Council of Norway, six aquaculture companies are working together to raise one million sterile salmon.

The salmon have been bred to using non-GM techniques to have a genetic condition called triploid.

Triploid salmon have an extra set of chromosomes from their mother which makes them sterile.

The condition can be produced by exposing salmon eggs to high pressure.

The method was developed in the 1980s and was used on rainbow trout in Scotland and Tasmania. However, trials on salmon were unsuccessful as some of the fish were prone to skeletal deformaties.

Now, with the help of information gleaned from the salmon genome sequencing project, the method had re-emerged as a potential solution to the interbreeding problem.
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New Zealand King Salmon is to fund two scholarships for aquaculture students at the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology, New Zealand.

The scholarships will be available from next year to students enrolled in year one and two of NMIT's Diploma in Aquaculture.

The year one scholarship will cover half a year's course fees while the year two scholarship will cover a student's full fees for a year.
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English: Sea lice, L. salmonis, on farmed Atla...
English: Sea lice, L. salmonis, on farmed Atlantic salmon, New Brunswick, Canada (Photo credit: Wikipedia)





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