# Opinions on GMO animals



## Xerneas (Aug 6, 2013)

I'm hoping that this thread can remain civil enough -- we all seem pretty mature here so I hope this kind of thing can be debated peacefully.

Also, I'm putting this in the R&R section instead of the other animal one because I am ranting here, not sharing pictures of my pets or anything.

So recently I've been looking into getting back into fishkeeping, upon just browsing around I've discovered GloFish. These animals are illegal in some places that forbid GMO products because they are exactly that, genetically modified animals... To quote Wikipedia on what these fish are (they are basically fluorescent zebra danios): 

"In 1999, Dr. Zhiyuan Gong[SUP][2][/SUP] and his colleagues at the National University of Singapore were working with a gene that encodes the green fluorescent protein (GFP), originally extracted from a jellyfish, that naturally produced bright green fluorescence. They inserted the gene into a zebrafish embryo, allowing it to integrate into the zebrafish's genome, which caused the fish to be brightly fluorescent under both natural white light and ultraviolet light. Their goal was to develop a fish that could detect pollution by selectively fluorescing in the presence of environmental toxins. The development of the constantly fluorescing fish was the first step in this process, and the National University of Singapore filed a patent application on this work.[SUP][3][/SUP] Shortly thereafter, his team developed a line of red fluorescent zebra fish by adding a gene from a sea coral, and orange-yellow fluorescent zebra fish, by adding a variant of the jellyfish gene. Later, a team of researchers at the National Taiwan University, headed by Professor Huai-Jen Tsai (蔡懷禎), succeeded in creating a medaka (rice fish) with a fluorescent green color, which like the zebrafish is a model organism used in biology."

So basically someone put a pretty light-up gene into a zebra danio embryo and thus you get this:










This situation seems to be relatively harmless for the most part but I still think it's a slippery slope and I wanted to rant about a few things.

My main problem with this is that it makes people forget these fish are living creatures and buy them for their aesthetic appeal. Seeing how bright and pretty they are (and might I say some of the tanks with the neon gravel and plants are indeed stunning) makes people buy them on impulse... Most of the LED light tanks advertised for them are WAY too small and not suitable for any fish actually, especially since Danios are schooling fish (pref. 6 or more to be happy). Cheap (kind of) to buy, pretty to look at, screaming 6 year old kid and you get a fish in a 1gal bowl that dies of ammonia poisoning a month later because everyone forgot about it... It's the same deal with goldfish at carnivals - they can live 10yrs but trapped in a bowl they can be reduced to weeks, even days...

I suppose I could argue too that modifying an animal to make it look nicer is just ethically wrong... We wouldn't implant a jellyfish gene into a human embryo to make it look pretty, so why a fish? I guess some would consider that overreacting since this seems harmless to the fish, but then it leads to all kinds of marketing scams and poor treatment for the animals and it's upsetting to watch. There are already fish that look gorgeous under LED lights, even a regular betta can be very bright... But I don't think there's a winner to that debate, the two sides clash so much. Again, I dislike how it makes these fish seem more like pretty objects and not really pets. 

I will probably not be owning any glofish in my lifetime, non-GMO Danios certainly though, I just feel uncomfortable knowing a modified animal is in my home, but I wanted to know if anyone feels very strongly about this and what other opinions there are on the topic.


----------



## JLSaufl (Jan 20, 2013)

I am completely against any sort of genetically modified anythings. The 'it isn't harmful' rant is bs in my opinion. It's one of the main reasons we are moving out of the country, actually and it is something I have A huge problem with. 

Sent from Petguide.com Free App


----------



## Xerneas (Aug 6, 2013)

Yep, I agree with you on that one. Just makes me feel uncomfortable and doesn't seem right at all IMHO. My family avoids all GMO foods as well so I don't have a great tolerance for GMO animals.


----------

