July 30, 2024 — Restaurants. Stadiums. Prisons. There’s a big new push to get invasive blue catfish out of the Chesapeake Bay and onto a variety of menus.
Why it matters: The Bay’s blue catfish population is booming, which is bad for the native species they outcompete for food and habitat, and those they prey on — especially our dwindling juvenile crab population.
The big picture: Blue catfish get a bad rap. “When I hear ‘invasive,’ it’s like aliens coming down. It’s not sexy, it’s not appetizing,” says Matthew Scales, seafood marketing director for Maryland’s Department of Agriculture.
- The agency is working with grocers and chefs to show consumers that blue catfish are sustainable and delicious.
Catch up quick: Blue catfish arrived in the Chesapeake Bay only a few decades ago — originally introduced in the ’70s for sports fishing in Virginia — but they’re already in the bay’s top three invasive species.
- Blue cats can balloon to the size of small kids, over 5 feet long and 100-plus lbs, reproduce like crazy, and travel great distances without food. But when they eat — crabs, menhaden, eels — they’re voracious.
By the numbers: The blue catfish commercial harvest in Maryland and the Potomac River skyrocketed from over 609,000 pounds in 2013 to 4.2 million pounds in 2023 — an increase of more than 500%. But that’s hardly enough to curb the population.
What they’re saying: Part of the problem is branding. “We’re battling the mindset that catfish are these dirty fish, bottom feeders,” Branson Williams, DNR’s invasive species manager, tells Axios. That’s not true, at least with blue cats.