Fighting Invasive Fish With Forks and Knives 180
An anonymous reader writes NPR commentator Bonny Wolf has a unique solution to battle the threat of invasive fish species in our waterways. She proposes we fight them with a knife, fork, and a few lemon wedges. From the article: "Take the northern snakehead, which has made its way into tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay. It competes with native species for food, and then eats the native species, not to mention the odd frog or bird, with its mouthful of sharp teeth. It's been called "Fishzilla." It breeds fast, has no natural predators and can grow to be 4 feet long. The northern snakehead hangs out in grassy shallows, making it hard to catch. But a couple of years ago, Maryland started promoting the snakehead as an eating fish. Its harvest has increased from zero to 5,000 pounds a year."
"Promoting" how? (Score:5, Interesting)
Does "promoting" mean passing out some posters or getting rid of the requirement to purchase a fishing license from the State to keep the northern snakehead? There are plenty of folks out of work who could help here in a win-win situation. We already have systems in place to police the fish that people keep and removing all restrictions on invasive species taking would go a long way towards reducing their populations.
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What kind of fish? (Score:5, Interesting)
Those are the fish that can move 1/4 mile across dry land to find new places to live. It probably crawled out of water and ate that word out of the summary.
Bioaccumulation Ahoy (Score:3, Interesting)
One side-effect of this is that people who eat this fish will consume more mercury, PCBs and other harmful substances compared to if they ate the native (potentially restricted-catch) fish. This is due to the northern snakehead consuming poisons in the water plus toxins accumulated in the flesh of their prey. Humans who eat this fish (or any predatory fish) would thus consume more toxins than if they ate a fish (like much of its prey likely is) that only eats primary producers.
The obvious solution involves Needle Snakes.
Seriously though, how much can we interfere with nature to ensure some animals' survival, and continue to call it 'nature' with a straight face? Eventually, the figurative and literal cage bars make it indistinguishable from captivity. Isn't there a point where we should let evolution do its thing? I know that often leads to extinction, but if we're only keeping wild animals alive so we can eat their tasty flesh, then we may as well keep enough to eat captive.
In Europe we eat them but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bioaccumulation Ahoy (Score:4, Interesting)
1) Have you any evidence of any surplus of heavy metals in the abovementioned waters?
2) Have you any evidence that other species of fish from the area have been ruled off limits due to heavy metals contamination?
3) Have you any evidence that this particular species of fish has a record of being a heavy metal accummulator due to its feeding strategies anywhere?
You sound like some boob that read something about tuna one time without actually understanding it. Locally pike fish are the equivalent - I wouldn't eat them but that's because they taste like shit, although they're popular in France so maybe I'm just cooking them wrong. They're perfectly safe to eat.
Love Invasive Fish (Score:3, Interesting)
I have fished in Florida for 60 years and I flat out love invasive species. They are exciting to catch and easy to catch if one knows how. I was catching snakeheads for several years before reporters first mentioned them. The are very similar to the Bowfins we have always had in Florida and I suspect that they have been in the wild for decades as the fish we thought were bowfins were way to large to actually be bowfins in many vases. We also have oscars as well as many cychlids, peacock bass and rainbow bass as well. So far I haven't seen any silver carp or big head carp but I'm sure they will do well here. We have a mule like Russian carp that was installed to stop certain weeds that get up to about 15 lbs.. And we have the lion fish in salt water in abundance. It adds to the sport of fishing. I say the more species the better. Pythons are common here and we have so many wild hogs that we sort of need the pythons to snag a few. Coyotes also are here as are armadillos which are also invaders. I still like them all.
Encourage over fishing? (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree that eating the invasive fish is a good idea. After all if we didn't put catch limits, and encourage catch and release, on the normal game fish people would have fished them to extinction. So really all we have to do is convince people they are good eating and then make no efforts to protect the invasive fish. My guess is once it gets going people will gleefully over fish them. Just have to make sure people stick to the undesirable fish.
I don't know about lion fish but both Asian carp and northern snakeheads are good to eat. They eat Asian carp extensively in China and the northern snakehead is commonly consumed in Thailand. I have seen them for sale in markets where the northern snakehead was stuffed with what looked like lemon grass, other herbs and covered in a layer of salt and then grilled. I never tried it simply because I am not keen on fish.
Re:What kind of fish? (Score:4, Interesting)
1. Catch the carp
2. load up ~100lbs of carp in the back of the jeep in a big plastic tub
3. dig a big hold in the garden
4. bury carp in the garden
They make a wonderful fertilizer. I also do the same thing with the little crappy bullheads from the pond that is full of sheep field run off near my house.