Scientist Fucked Up and Created a New Kind of Fish and This Is a Warning Sign
In a wild turn of events, a new kind of fish has been born in a lab entirely by accident. The “sturddlefish” is a hybrid between a Russian sturgeon (Acipenser gueldenstaedtii) and an American paddlefish and came into existence by accident.
Both fish—which are considered endangered—managed to breed while in captivity at a Hungarian lab.
“We never wanted to play around with hybridization. It was absolutely unintentional,” Attila Mozsár, a senior researcher at the Research Institute for Fisheries and Aquaculture in Hungary, told The New York Times.
Full story here.
This is a classic scroll-over story. Ultimately, nobody cares about this fish. Im not a fish enthusiast, and in that regard I consider myself among the majority in my age bracket. I could care less about either of these fish, or the fact that they’re going extinct OTHER THAN THE FACT that I’d obviously prefer existence versus extinction because I’m not a monster. I’d say that that’s exactly what the scientists want but I honestly think that they don’t know any better. To me, this was a shot across the bow. This was a warning.
I’m all for doing whatever it takes to save a species but this is too far. We can’t be so desperate that we’re just out here inventing species. Even accidentally. ESPECIALLY ACCIDENTALLY. Ever seen Jurassic Park? Alien? Big? In at least one of those movies a new species is created. Yeah sure nobody give a shit about a scuttle fish but what about when they try to save the tigers, huh? What are we gonna do with a new breed of super tiger? And that’s what’s coming folks. We’re in 2020. Between pollution, globalization, deforestation, and all around human fuckery our predators are having trouble finding food sources and they’re on their way out. So while we may laugh at a scuttling fuck fish we won’t be laughing at a bear-lion, or a flying tiger hybrid, or any other number of reasonably plausible possibilities.
We’re in a dangerous time with cloning, and gene mutation and all that other stuff that might cure my diabetes but otherwise goes way over my head. First thing we’re trying to saving a random fish, next thing oops we just made a dinosaur.