Allowing an American company to produce the eggs of genetically-modifed salmon on P.E.I. would hurt the Island's reputation as a green province, environmentalists warn.
The AquaBounty Technologies experimental fish plant in Bay Fortune produces the Atlantic genetically-modified salmon eggs. Implanted genes make the fish grow at twice the natural rate. Aquabounty has asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve the fish for commercial sale.
The FDA is currently reviewing the environmental risks of the eggs being raised at the P.E.I. facility, then being sent to a Panama facility to be grown to adult size, and finally shipped, table-ready for retail sale in the U.S.
It would be the first genetically-modified animal approved as a food product.
Around 100 people gathered at the Rodd Charlottetown Monday night for a panel discussion on the work being done at the facility in Bay Fortune, on P.E.I.'s eastern shore.
"We can start right here on Prince Edward Island, by demanding that our government have more scrutiny over the drug factory on Bay Fortune," said Leo Broderick of the Council of Canadians.
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