Amazing Breakthrough Discovery Should Save Endangered Fish

Exotic Animal Newsflash:

This week, it was reported that “surrogate broodstocking” may save endangered fish, as researchers engineer one fish to create another fish.

Tokyo University inventors injected newly hatched, but sterile, Asian masu salmon with sperm-growing cells from rainbow trout. These salmon then grew up to produce trout babies. Amazing! What a breakthrough! (Photo left: Rainbow Trout)

Fantastic news for endangered fish species and subspecies! In the past, it has been extremely difficult to breed endangered fish in captivity, and attempts to freeze fish eggs for future use have failed.

Researchers already have their eyes on sturgeon (Photo right: Atlantic Sturgeon), paddlefish (Photo below: American Paddlefish), bluefin tuna and sockeye salmon to start with. Japanese researchers embarked on this experimental journey to save the bluefin tuna, as Japan is prized for it’s hunger for tuna, and they are an endangered fish.

It was initially attempted to inject fish that were normal, meaning not sterile, but this resulted in hybrid fish that did not survive. The idea to use sterile fish, in my opinion, is ingenious!

The newly hatched salmon were injected with stem cells from trout that would become sperm. 10 out of 29 salmon male salmon grew up to produce trout sperm.

Even more interesting: It even worked in females sometimes. Sterile female salmon, when injected with these same stem cells, then ovulated trout eggs. Unbelievable! This is a dream come true for fish conservation of endangered species!

Now, it gets really exciting: Both wild trout eggs and the salmon-grown trout eggs were fertilized by the salmon-grown trout sperm, and DNA testing confirmed that pure trout babies were produced! Wow! This just gets better and better, doesn’t it?

The absolute best part: These babies then grew to be able to reproduce (they were not sterile). Awesome!

Researchers at the University of Idaho are working with Tokyo University researchers to save the endangered Sockeye Salmon. (Photo above: Sockeye Salmon)

* Neat research: Since it is difficult to “marine ranch” bluefin tuna, as they can grow as large as a human, researchers are working on ways to use small fish to produce bluefin tuna young, in order to save space, and therefore cost and labor when farming. (Photo left: Northern Bluefin Tuna)

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To read more on this story: Salmon spawn baby trout in experiment

This is absolutely huge news for all fish on this planet! I am so excited about this finding. They are really onto something here!

I hope you enjoyed today’s installment of Exotic Animal Lover. I learned so much today! Until next time…

Live Exotically,

Kimberly Edwards

P.S. To find out more about Endangered Fish that may benefit from this amazing breakthrough, check out this book:

Conservation Of Endangered Freshwater Fish In Europe

Technorati Tags: fish, endangered fish, endangered species, scientific discovery, ocean animals, marine animals, animal news, Asian animals, North American animals, sockeye salmon, rainbow trout, Asian masu salmon, paddlefish, sturgeon, broodstocking

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