Virginia Has the Blue Catfish Blues

In “Virginia Has the Blue Catfish Blues,”Gravy reporter Anya Groner takes listeners to the Chesapeake Bay, where, over the past decade, invasive blue catfish have derailed the ecosystem in the East Coast’s largest fish nursery. Native to the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio River basins, blue catfish were first stocked in the bay’s tributary rivers in the 1970s to provide a new trophy fish for recreational anglers. At the time, no one predicted that a freshwater catfish could make its way into the brackish waters of the Chesapeake Bay, much less outcompete native crabs, oysters, and fish. The impact has been devastating for the environment and for the seafood industry. Generational watermen are going out of business, and most of the fishmongers who buy and process their catch have shut their doors. Yet, Dr. Michael Schwarz, associate director of Virginia Tech's Seafood and Agricultural Research & Extension Center, says there’s a lucrative way to manage the population of this expanding apex predator and reinvigorate the seafood industry.  Blue catfish happen to be delicious. Studies show that managed correctly, a blue catfish fishery could have an economic impact of $1.1 billion and create 7,000 new jobs. “ The easiest solution for anything is to eat it,” says Kyle Rowley, the chief operating officer of Skrimp Shack, a fourteen-restaurant franchise in Virginia and North Carolina. As a topwater predator, blue catfish don’t have the muddy flavor sometimes associated with farmed catfish. And Rowley says, they fry beautifully. Three years ago, he added blue catfish to Skrimp Shack’s menu. “We're doing something right that is actually helping our fellow Virginians, and we enjoy that.” But building a market for an invasive species is an inherent conflict of interest, says Dr. Mary Fabrizio, a biologist at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. “Basically you're starting the fishery to put itself out of business,” she says. If the fishery is as lucrative as some predict it can be, the goal could switch from shrinking the population to maintaining it. Fabrizio’s computer models show that unless a very high number of catfish are pulled from the bay, culling catfish won’t rejuvenate native fish. Join Groner as she travels from the docks of the Chesapeake Bay to marine labs and restaurants, asking watermen, fishmongers, scientists, and restaurateurs to ask what it will take to build a blue catfish market and whether it’s possible to balance the needs of the seafood industry and the ecosystem. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices