The Prince Edward Island environment minister approved a proposal by AquaBounty, the developer of a genetically engineered salmon, to produce 250 tonnes a year of the fish at Rollo Bay West, on the northeastern shore of the province, reported the CBC. The FDA approved AquaBounty’s fish for human consumption in 2015, making it the first GE animal approved for sale, but the agency required the Massachusetts company to grow the GE salmon outside the United States.
AquaBounty initially planned to keep only breeding stock at the Prince Edward Island facility but recently modified its plans by asking provincial officials for permission to construct two 40,000-square-foot buildings on the site, said the CBC. Like the United States, Canada has approved commercialization of the GE salmon, a strain of Atlantic salmon with a growth hormone gene from Chinook salmon that causes the fish to consume less feed and grow to marketable size twice as fast as conventional salmon.
The federal agency Fisheries and Oceans Canada said there is a low risk of GE fish escaping from the facility, which is on land. Further, the AquaBounty salmon are sterile, so they cannot breed with wild salmon, said the CBC.
The president of the PEI Salmon Council, Scott Roloson, told the CBC that he was disappointed by the process that led to provincial approval of the first facility in North America to produce genetically modified salmon. “Given the precedent-setting nature of the development, it is disappointing that the undertaking was approved as a mere amendment to a previous Environmental Impact Assessment,” said Roloson in an email. “This development will pave the way for the production of a variety of other genetically modified organisms. We only get one chance to get this right.”