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Food: Fish
Zebra Mussel -> Salmon   (+4)  [vote for, against]
Breed salmonoids that eat zebra and quagga mussels.

There's an Atlantic Salmon relative that is able to eat mollusks, using its gizzard. The Gillaroo, Salmo stomachicus, eats mostly snails in Lough Melvin, Eire. Crossed with Salmo salar, the Atlantic salmon, perhaps the offspring could be selected to eat Zebra mussels,(Dreissena polymorpha) or Quagga mussels (Dreissena bugensis), where invasive in Atlantic salmon native range. The hybrid salmon would be halfway native in such ranges, being half Atlantic salmon. Perhaps this hybrid could be genetically modified to digest organic toxins and excrete inorganic ones that might otherwise bio-accumulate from the oft-polluted Zebra and Quagga mussels, yielding purified salmon for the table.
-- briancady413, Nov 30 2015

Gillaroo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillaroo
Salmo stomachicus [briancady413, Nov 30 2015]

Zebra Mussel https://en.wikipedi...g/wiki/Zebra_mussel
Dreissena polymorpha [briancady413, Nov 30 2015]

Quagga Mussel https://en.wikipedi.../wiki/Quagga_mussel
Dreissena bugensis [briancady413, Nov 30 2015]

All good ([+]) up to //Perhaps this hybrid could be genetically modified//, which falls under the "GM magic" umbrella.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 30 2015


I can see that having a shell would offer zebras protection from lions. Presumably then we'd end up with lions working out how to use a chisel.
-- not_morrison_rm, Nov 30 2015


No, they'd just cook them in their shells by putting them under a gorilla ....
-- 8th of 7, Nov 30 2015


Rather "WIBNI / GM Magic" here, because Nature has already experimented with millions of creatures mixing genes having sex in the lakes for many generations, and any species that got a taste for zebra mussels would have a buffet & thrive.

The only new thing here might be to seed the lake with a few new species that were not yet native, to have them have sex & multiply. But, isn't that exactly how we get in this mess in the first place? Invasive species don't often end well.
-- sophocles, Dec 01 2015



random, halfbakery