I never thought about the perils of genetically manipulated beef, with my meager BBQ skills I usually eat briquette of “beef like substance”. Charcoal is a spice – get enough black on that haunch and the genetics are the least of your worries.
I’m fine with modified grains – and anything else derived from stem cell research, figuring whatever plague we unleash would be tame compared to what we’d already done to the environment, and it might even weed a few of us conspicuous capitalists off the landscape – lessening the burden somewhat.
But a fellow has to draw the line somewhere’s …
The current flap over a new sewage treatment plant for the Provo River may be our call to arms, not in the traditional sense – but if the manager has his way, they’ll be adding trout to the outflow to test water quality:
Matthews has his own idea for demonstrating the water’s high quality. He wants to build a 10-foot fish tank in the sewer plant to hold a couple of trout from one of the nearby fishing holes. The district will run treated effluent through it.
“If there’s a problem,” he said, “we’ll see it in our own plant.”
The old “canary in a coal mine” ploy – but what if a half dozen fertile fish were to escape after a couple seasons of inhaling pooty water?
It could stimulate catch and release fishing out of self defense, then again, they could be the next Invasive Species – intermingling and inter-breeding with native fish so everything tastes like warm Pampers.
Suddenly I’m waffling on the science front, brown trout are fine – but I don’t want all of them that way…
If they were really serious about this, they’d use amphibians instead of trout. Put a webcam on them so everyone could watch the malformed limbs grow out of their backs. Great family fun.
Are you serious? This is how he wants to test his water quality? Jeez, he must be operating on a REALLY tight budget.
I grew up fishing a river right below the towns sewer plant. Most of my friends’ parents wouldn’t let them fish with me because they were afraid of what we might catch. One of my best freind’s dad used to always ask if we caught sinkers or floaters! Honestly, the holes below the plant had the biggest fish in the entire river. Must have been something in the water!
Kais
http://www.onetoomanyhobbies.com
Kais: Did you eat them, or let them go?
I had the same experience as Kais.
As a youngster I fished all over the San Francisco waterfront and the Marin side of te Bay. One day I’m reading a book about the fish of California – looking up some strange perch I caught .. in the margin is the careful annotation, “plentiful around sewage treatment outflows, I don’t care for their flavor.”
It was too late, I’d already ate them. Gulp.
It doesn’t matter Kais, you da Man! It appears that SMJ has made a good start on singlebarb’s next unannounced prize. From his enthusiasm, he must believe it’s a bass boat!
I’ve heard rumors that the next winner will be chosen based upon the quality, clarity, and intelligence of his comments, in which case neither Igneous nor I have a shot at that boat.
He got the looks, I got the split infinitives – fair trade.