Fines for Frankenfish

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Hidden in the Chiriqui highlands past Boquete is a Blofeld-kind-of outfit called "Aqua Bounty" where they breed Frankenfish, genetically modified salmon. Bad idea, you say. Yes, so do we. We have genetically engineered kamikaze mosquitoes in this country and that is already too much.

So, we had hoped that some kind of official James Bond type would sneak up to the Frankenfish laird in the mountains and blow the place up before getting away in a Bananama replica supercar from David, sound of the explosions still reverberating through the mountains, massive smoke clouds, you know the drill. Kill each and every genetically engineered fish and its evil creators, to save the planet, and then chill with a prepaga on the beach in Las Lajas for a while.

Instead, the government chose the lame solution: They are fining Aqua Bounty. It turns out that the outfit is operating without the necessary permits it needs.

On top of that, environmentalists claim that they are dumping water from their fishy operations in streams that lead to the Caldera river. This is obviously risky business as genetically engineered Frankenfish may end up in the wild, cross-breeding with local species or eating them all or who knows what.

So enough with these fines already. That place needs to be closed down, and fast. We volunteer!

2 thoughts on “Fines for Frankenfish

  1. The Rio Caldera in and above Boquete has one native species of fish, fish diversity drops sharply with elevation especially in very steep volcanic topography like the shoulders of Baru. Taking the risk of introducing a salmonid in to that system is astoundingly stupid, although Panama could get lucky and the river might be too chaotic even for a salmonid. (The one native is a small livebearing fish, Brachyrhaphis terrebensis.)

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