The neighbor’s randy Chihuahua, Sven, with a hankering for your lower leg? Doesn’t really count. BUT interspecies liaisons are the real deal, with real-world repercussions. Think ligers, zonkeys, pizzly bears, and Donald Trump. In the underwater world, Atlantic salmon will mate with browns. And the frankenfish Cinderella story of the future, according to scientists, could be the result of AquAdvantage® genetically altered salmon and wild trout.
Via Grist: “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration appears poised to approve the sale of genetically engineered AquAdvantage® salmon this year, despite significant aversion to the very idea of the frankenfish. If the transgenic Atlantic salmon escapes into the wild, environmentalists worry that the fast-growing fish could breed with wild Atlantic salmon and throw natural populations into unpredictable turmoil. Which got scientists to wondering: What if transgenic Atlantic salmon got loose and bred with wild brown trout? Could AquAdvantage fish sow their freaky oats over a species barrier?”
Affirmative, captain.
Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.