I think...these's lazy, fat salmon are gonna "man up" to this situation. Like, their gonna know that there lives are in danger when they get hungry and cant find a place to spawn..so they'll have no chioce but to swim. Swim will burn fat and produce muscle. Mucles means they get bigger, faster and stronger.So maybe there will not be a down fall this situation.

Angus McCrady, Beardmore, Canada

"Couch potato with fins".
Seems that as the Government is determined to allow G.M food production in the U.K. we WILL shortly have Potatoes with fins, when these get loose in the vegetable patch the results could be mind boggling.

Simon, Leeds, U.K.

So according to this logic those of us humans who carry a little extra weight and don't exercise too much needn't even bother trying as it's genetic. All along I thought it was from eating too much - well now I can just carry on if there's no fixing it!!

Honestly some people are never happy unless they are unhappy and being negative - Go the Salmon hope they have a better life than swimming round and round a cage for their short ,fat lives!!

Ami, blandford,

Having fished all my life for trout and salmon

This is surely a good day for salmon as normally fishing clubs have to buy young salmon and trout from fish farms,,now we have them free of cost,, and bigger salmon at that

Nature is wonderful it will be survival of the fittest and some will live on to become breading salmon in our rivers.

I assume to say the dolphins and seals will soon sort out any slow fish, so something will at all times benefit

Nicholas Iles, Oswestry, United Kingdom

No Killick, humanity are not animals and nor should the application of such aggressive pseudo theories be unqualifiedly prropagated - because we have the have the ability and wisdom to know better. Human life has a worth, at least enough that God brought us into existence from nothing not just to join the rat-race or to be caricatured as lesser or more in the 'survival of the fittest'. How many wars and deaths and how much blood has been rendered permissible by viewing others as inferior and a threat to your breed?

CityMuslim, London, UK

what? - we are farmed and fattened in cages while are free brothers and sisters live hard but healthy lives.

eugenics is disgusting - shame on you

chris, liverpool, uk

sorry but you are missing the point , wild fish return to the spot where they were born , normally to within half a mile of that spot , this is what makes the salmon an amazing species , if you start to mix those genes with farmed fish then that is no longer the case , the fish do not breed succesfully, and thus the numbers start to dwindle , to put the case in simpler terms , imagine if a farmer allowed 30,000 cattle to escape and did nothing about it , there would be uproar , just because they are in the sea and you cant see them doesnt mean it is of lesser importance

nick warren, bristol, uk

If the fish have to battle their way upstream in order to spawn then there is little danger from the flabby, thin-finned escapees. The few that perchance make it against all the odds and procreate will not produce offspring that survives the year in the wild, given the physical differences between the two strains.

Roswhita, London,

If these fat lazy salmon are so badly suited to the environment is it likely they will survive long enough to breed or be able to make it upriver to spawn?

James, Taunton, UK

From the description of these fat, lazy, worn-finned farmed fish, one might be surprised that any could make to the spawning grounds.

Furthermore, will they know where to go? Perhaps, like many males, they'll just (try to) follow the girls, of course.

Steven, Edinburgh, UK

I know as much about genetics as the next man (i.e. nothing) but, even if they don't get to swim thousands of miles, will the actual genetic makeup of factory-farmed salmon change?

Chris Jackson, London,

If it is so 'disasterous' that 'farmed' salmon on their release from cages may (will) mate and produce "genetically weak" ofspring, thus threatening the (natural) wild salmon species........would anyone mind telling exactly what we are eating when we eat salmon? Mostly, the farmed 'inferior' variety no doubt, genetically tampered with to produce more flesh pound per pound and thus more profit -
So who's going to hold their hands up to 'genetic tampering with, and thus threatening, a natural species for profit' ? And on top of this, they expect people to eat the ones they've tampered with. Yuck!

Tarni, London, UK

Let me see if I understand this.

Salmon must swim vigorously upstream against swift currents in order to breed. How many weak, flabby farm fish will succeed in that journey? And if they do, it strikes me that they have the right stuff to be wild fish, and will produce suitably vigorous wild offspring.

So what am I missing that makes this prison break on the part of the fish such a problem?

Ben Hoff, New Jersey, USA

Interesting that some of the people responsible for the original decline of wild salmon stocks (the fisheries sector) are the very people trying to aportion blame to the one industry trying to reduce the pressure on wild salmon stocks. Surely there should be more co-ordinated action and less finger pointing (and more education).

Dan Fairweather, London, UK

A good metaphor for humanity. If you thought eugenics was a dubious creed, think again.

Killick, Belize City, Belize