Oopsie

[BilletHead]

      ONE ANGLER'S VOYAGE: INVASIVE CATFISH THREATEN MID-ATLANTIC FISH STOCKS--INCLUDING STRIPED BASS (oneanglersvoyage.blogspot.com)

 

[MOPanfisher]

Never would have thought about blue cays being invasive, just goes to show that with the right conditions any species can become a problem.

[tjm]

Grandpa said "any plant out of place is a weed".  And that applies to fish as, "any fish stocked anywhere is an invasive." Even if the species may have been in a place historically, the hatchery version won't be the same stock.  Any introduction of animal or plant to any environment will affect that environment negatively. 

[FishnDave]

"No direct scientific link has yet been established between catfish predation and declines in important fish species in rivers flowing into the Bay. "

Are we looking for a scapegoat, rather than addressing the real problems?  The article talks about politics and funding.

"At a time when striped bass recruitment is dismayingly low, a time when a changing climate may be making the Chesapeake watershed less likely to produce big year classes of bass, the last thing that we or the striped bass need is additional stress on the resource, whether that stress comes from increased recreational landings or from an increasing population of invasive, predatory blue catfish."

[FishnDave]

https://www.in-fisherman.com/editorial/super-bass-aka-snakeheads/378545

“Through researching and reading about snakeheads, I eventually came across work done by John Odenkirk, a fishery biologist at the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. In reading his work and the work of others, I quickly discovered that all the published scientific studies done by fishery biologists in the U.S. didn’t demonstrate any invasive impact to native species from snakeheads.

“Contrary to early fears, largemouth bass hadn’t decreased in number since the introduction of snakeheads. They had increased in number since snakeheads arrived in the Potomac and its tributaries. The prey species of northern snakehead, like banded killifish, hadn’t decreased either. They had also increased. Clearly, this didn’t match the media headlines that heralded the end of our native species in the jaws of the infamous snakehead fish.

[BilletHead]

2 hours ago, FishnDave said:

"No direct scientific link has yet been established between catfish predation and declines in important fish species in rivers flowing into the Bay. "

Are we looking for a scapegoat, rather than addressing the real problems?  The article talks about politics and funding.

"At a time when striped bass recruitment is dismayingly low, a time when a changing climate may be making the Chesapeake watershed less likely to produce big year classes of bass, the last thing that we or the striped bass need is additional stress on the resource, whether that stress comes from increased recreational landings or from an increasing population of invasive, predatory blue catfish."

 

2 hours ago, FishnDave said:

https://www.in-fisherman.com/editorial/super-bass-aka-snakeheads/378545

“Through researching and reading about snakeheads, I eventually came across work done by John Odenkirk, a fishery biologist at the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. In reading his work and the work of others, I quickly discovered that all the published scientific studies done by fishery biologists in the U.S. didn’t demonstrate any invasive impact to native species from snakeheads.

“Contrary to early fears, largemouth bass hadn’t decreased in number since the introduction of snakeheads. They had increased in number since snakeheads arrived in the Potomac and its tributaries. The prey species of northern snakehead, like banded killifish, hadn’t decreased either. They had also increased. Clearly, this didn’t match the media headlines that heralded the end of our native species in the jaws of the infamous snakehead fish.

                     Dave, I think there is more at play here also. It's a time deal that might take a while to rear its ugly head.  No one thought or cared way back when common carp , bighead carp, black carp, grass carp, brook trout, Callery pear and autumn olive were introduced.  These are just examples of many, many things We have to live with now.  Yes, we like to chase and catch them. Like you anything that pulls on my fly line I enjoy catching but at what cost? I care about what is next. Like @fishinwrench and his thoughts about the hybrid striper messing up the gene pool in the white bass. He says he has seen it but I have not. Time will tell but do you think it is worth the gamble? 

[FishnDave]

11 minutes ago, BilletHead said:

 

                     Dave, I think there is more at play here also. It's a time deal that might take a while to rear its ugly head.  No one thought or cared way back when common carp , bighead carp, black carp, grass carp, brook trout, Callery pear and autumn olive were introduced.  These are just examples of many, many things We have to live with now.  Yes, we like to chase and catch them. Like you anything that pulls on my fly line I enjoy catching but at what cost? I care about what is next. Like @fishinwrench and his thoughts about the hybrid striper messing up the gene pool in the white bass. He says he has seen it but I have not. Time will tell but do you think it is worth the gamble? 

I'm not a gambler.  The problem certainly lies largely with us.  As long as humans have been on the earth, we've been moving plants and animals from place to place around the planet.  I feel like in some instances there has been more fear mongering than serious threats.  Certainly there are some truly terrifying invasives.... like Wild Parsnip.  Somewhere, apparently that stuff grows naturally and somehow(?) wasn't a problem?

Sometimes the introductions of non-natives have been accidental, sometimes intentional.  Corn originated in Mexico, right?  Soybeans from China.  Cattle from the Middle East/Eastern Europe.  Apples from Central Asia.  Chickens from Southeast Asia and Oceana.  Birmingham Roller Pigeons are from England.  What else has been shown to move species around?  Natural occurrences such as floods, birds, wind, currents, temperature changes, time...

Blue Catfish are native to this continent, just not those particular waters.  In the waters where Blue Catfish have been since before there were humans on this continent.... other species of fish continue to survive.  The concern in the article (where the blog's author's STATED PURPOSE is to INCITE) is mainly regarding the unproven/unstudied effects on Striped Bass.  We've moved those around too.  We've introduced them to some waters where Blue Catfish are native.  Are the catfish guys complaining about the Striped Bass suddenly eating all the baby Blue Cats?  I dunno.

We have tried and continue to try to fix non-native species introductions.  Eradication of the non-natives hasn't happened in most (all?) cases.  I don't have any answers.  What should we do?

[Quillback]

Going to be hard to get those blue cats under control.  They are tasty, maybe some kind of all out commercial and recreational fishing effort with no limits might hammer the numbers down, but I doubt they'll ever get rid of them.  

[bfishn]

Yeah, I think that cat's out of the bag.

[BilletHead]

56 minutes ago, FishnDave said:

   What should we do?

       Quit trying to make things better. If it is a natural replacement fine.  There have been success stories for sure like the European honeybee. Our gray squirrel is running rampant in places in Europe. I call that a good trade for bees 🤣. Where does this end? Heck, I don't know. Just seen today they found some giant invasive African snails in luggage coming into the states.   Stop bucket biologists.