Dealing with Invasive Species by Eating Them
Globalization has taken its toll on the US economically; with all the importing and consuming we do the law of unintended consequences is wreaking havoc on native marine species as well. The Mississippi river is deluged with Asian carp, Florida's reefs newest residents the lion fish are gobbling up anything they can eat and European green crabs are ousting blue crabs at an alarming rate.
The problem of invasive species is so epic the Army Corp of Engineers has been building electronic barriers on the Mississippi river trying to prevent the Asian a.k.a. snake head carp from moving into the Illinois river and the Great Lakes. How many native species are getting zapped along with the snake heads? I'm sure an unacceptable number, looks like the barriers are going to cause significant native species casualties.
If we look at history we see how the most voracious predator on this planet has eaten its way to the top of the food chain. Who is this predator? Humans! Let's face it we've eaten or used up blue whales, the now endangered Chilean sea bass and beluga Sturgeon along with countless others.
What should we do about all these aliens invading US waterways? Eat them, as I pointed out earlier that seems a sure fire way to get on the endangered species list.
Eating threatening and invasive species is not a perfect solution; greedy opportunist will inevitably try raising their own and haphazardly introduce these pests into waterways that aren't already contaminated. The second obvious issue is marketing; getting people to eat fish that look like lion fish will certainly pose a challenge. On a high note our pets like seafood and my cats certainly won't complain about “ugly” fish for dinner!
Come on America let's do something were good at while helping to preserve native species. Eat these pests out of existence or at least make pet food out of them.
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