Replacing Menhaden with Invasive Carp in Aquaculture Fish Meal

Fishy Fridays

Weekly spotlight on fisheries science journal articles

 

Jeff Kopaska
AFS Executive Director
jkopaska@fisheries.org

Today’s paper brings together two seemingly disparate, both substantial, fisheries issues. On the Louisiana Gulf Coast, as well as the Atlantic seaboard, menhaden harvest has become quite controversial. Long story short, the commercial harvest of these important forage fish has been identified as an issue regarding the population declines in Atlantic Striped Bass populations. Additionally, the menhaden industry is making waves in Louisiana by thumbing their nose at recreational anglers and pushing for a nearly nonexistent buffer zone for their commercial activities along the coast, not to mention all the bycatch discard mortalities of game fish. Invasive carp have grown into a bigger and bigger problem in the Mississippi Drainage over the last 30+ years; their impacts on native fish populations and the management challenges they have created are well documented. The connection between these two issues made in today’s paper is fish meal and fish oil in aquaculture systems. Fish, especially fry and fingerlings, tend to grow best with fish components in their diet, and historically those components have come from commercially harvested menhaden. The research presented here compared diets using menhaden (traditional) with diets containing invasive carp as the source of fish oil and fish meal. The results were very promising, great potential for a fisheries win! Expanded markets, hopefully resulting in additional harvest of invasive carp and increased niche spaced and resource availability for native fish, what a win! Replacing the demand for menhaden, freeing up those resources for natural marine systems, and sending fewer dollars to bad-acting foreign multinational companies, another win! Read and enjoy!

Potential of invasive carp as a source of fish meal and fish oil in Channel Catfish diets