Prices for wild salmon are already too high for most households, and this will worsen as wild fish catches fall farther behind potential demand. Without farmed fish, we’ll see “fish poaching” such as threatens the rhinoceros and elephant. Or more of the mislabeling that is already common. Biotech salmon should help bring the health benefits of salmon within the reach of everyone.

The AquaAdvantage salmon get their extra genes from two other fish, one of them the related Coho species of salmon. The other is from the ocean pout, which has a gene that provides “anti-freeze” and lets the fish eat and grow even in the winter. The Coho salmon provides a gene that reinforces the modified salmon’s own growth hormone. As a result, the biotech fish grow up to 11 times faster than wild fish, and grow larger.