The Atlantic has a story today on the rise of Asian silver carp in the Mississippi River. Turns out too many fish can be just as big a problem as too few. Apparently these non-native fish jump into boats, decimate ecosystems and engage in all sorts of general mischief:
“I’ve been hit hard,” said Duane Chapman, a fish biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and one of the foremost American experts on Asian carp. Chapman, who is based in Missouri, installed nets around his boat to protect himself. But that didn’t work quite well enough. One time, he recalled, “a really large one came out from behind me. I heard it come out of the water, and I turned a little bit. The son of a gun cleared the net and hit me right above the teeth. I tell you, my neck hurt for two weeks. It was like getting hit by a bowling ball.”
(No word on whether or not the carp was wearing a beret.)
People are desperate to control the population—last month, the Obama administration announced a $78.5 million initiative intended to prevent Asian carp from migrating and establishing a population in the Great Lakes.
Another idea involves rebranding the bony fish as food—and separating it in people’s minds from plain old “carp,” a smelly, unpopular bottom feeder. Chef Philippe Parola is on the case. In the past, he’s worked on alligator, and something a bit more challenging:
Parola had far less success in the 1990s, when he teamed up with the state in a quixotic attempt—putting it kindly—to convince people to eat nutria, a voracious swamp rodent that looks like a cross between a rat and a beaver.
That sentence made me think of this, and then this. Yum.
The biggest deterrent seems to be the bones, something American eaters can’t really get down with. That said, the writer found the fish mildly edible. The whole effort raises another question: Why create a market for a fish that you hope to eliminate?
I have followed this for a long time, and word on the street is that these asian carp are really delicious. Common carp are too actually- in fact they were stocked all across America for food in the late 1800s. They fell out of favor because of pollution and new availability of ocean fish for inlanders. Common carp have the same issues with bones. The usual way to solve the problem is to score the fillets before frying. This makes the bones dissolve. It would probably work for Asian carp too. Check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bFCbifraN0
🙂
A trip to Asia was a serious help to my bone-phobia. We ate so much whole fish over there—you just eat around em. Also, for a voracious eater like me, its a nice reminder to slow down.
For the prices per pound they’re talking, it certainly seems worth a try.
There are a lot of stories about these bow hunters popping up. Not exactly a good use of the fish, but at least some industry potential.
http://thechive.com/2010/03/22/instant-karma-woman-bow-hunting-carp-gets-jaw-broken-by-fish-9-photos/
As worried as the stakeholders in Great Lakes fisheries are about the Asian carp, they don’t seem to mind the yearly stocking of many millions of Pacific salmon. (Kings and Cohos) They get very large, are predatory, and have no business there. Populations of small fish are dwindling in the Great Lakes, and the only blame I seem to read about is zebra mussels and gobies. No mention of the non native fish that eat them for a living… probably because they make a lot of money.
The rainbow and brown trout they stock in millions every year all over our area are not native either, but they sell a lot more fishing licenses than the natives.