Everywhere on this planet we are experiencing one of the effects of global travel and transportation. From the pandemics that are too easily spread, to non-native, invasive species taking over our local rivers, planting themselves in our soil, running around our forests, and destroying native ecosystems. The way to deal with these invaders best, seems to be to prevent them from coming to our shores, create a crew to remove them, poisoning and killing them, and to consider eating our way through their invasion. There is something sort of poetic about eating the invaders, so long as they taste good.
Also thanks to JJ for sending this idea to me. All PattyCook readers can send me a facebook note requesting posts, or forwarding food-related articles my way. I read each comment and appreciate hearing what you like or are curious about.
February 28th through March 4th 2022 is National Invasive Species Awareness Week (NISAW). Please see more information at NISA.ORG
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What are Invasive Species?
Definitions
Fish and Wildlife Services (FWS) writes that an invasive species is one that is not native to an ecosystem and which causes, or is likely to cause, economic or environmental harm or harm to human health.
PopSci further explains: Any organism can conceivably become an invasive species, if it finds its way into an ecosystem where it doesn’t belong. But there are some characteristics that make some species more harmful than others. If it spreads aggressively, grows and reproduces quickly, and feasts mercilessly, it will make a particularly deadly invader.
Dealing with invasive species is a very costly endeavor. Here are some financial facts about these species (mammals, fish, crustations, reptiles, plants, and insects).
- Invasive species have globally cost ~$1.3T over the past half century.
- They are responsible for extinction of ~1/3rd animals/plants in the past 500 years.
- There are now 4,300 nonnative, invasive types of wildlife in the United States.
Countries have chosen to deal with the harmful invaders in many different ways. They put a bounty on the killed ones, poison, use pesticides, use crews to remove and kill them, introduce their enemies (causing more problems), etc. Finally someone suggested eating them.
ScientificAmerican posts “Invasivorism,” or eating invasive species as a means to control or eliminate their numbers, has become a popular tool, utilized by restaurants and even Whole Foods. Research on the efficacy of this approach is limited, and the complexity of ecosystems requires careful management of invasive populations. This term was first popularized in 2010 by New York Times journalist James Gorman (more about him below).
Ecological Eating Anyone?
So long as people have traveled, they have been introducing various plants, animals, fish, and fowl into areas where they were not native. Some of those species found an ideal environment and the invasive species took over, generally causing economic and ecological damage to habitats.
- Kudzu: AKA the plant that ate the South.
- Gray Squirrel.
- Cane toad.
- Sea lamprey: A blood sucker attacking native Great Lakes fish, but eaten in England.
- Paiche: A fish invasion in South America.
- The tiny zebra mussels clogging pipes and choking native shellfish throughout the upper Midwest (1).
- Andean pampas grass.
Conservation Ecologist Joe Roman (U of Virginia) wrote an Audubon article in 2004 called “Eat the Invaders”. This idea has actually caught on in many areas experiencing this problem, so for a couple of decades now, there has been this idea about handling invasive species by making whatever species it is very tasty for human palates. Basically, creating a market for the potential food, with the hope that human’s appetite will eat so many we can either control or eradicate the species from where they do not belong.
- The ScientificAmerican writes Invaders are now the second-most important cause of global biodiversity loss after habitat destruction.
Historical Steps To Eat Invasives
This approach, to eat the invaders, has grown since its introduction by Joe Roman, back in 2004.
- 2005 sushi Chef Bun Lai created an invasive species menu for Miya’s, in New Haven, Conn.
- 2010 NOAA launched its “Eat Lionfish” campaign to combat the species’ invasion of the Caribbean.
- 2011 Food & Water Watch hosted an invasive species banquet at the James Beard House in NYC.
- 2012 Illinois sold 22k metric tons of invasive Asian carp to China, as food.
- 2012 FWS banned the Burmese python, the yellow anaconda, and the northern and southern African pythons from importation.
- 2014 biologists Susan Pasko and Jason Goldberg wrote in Management of Biological Invasions, that after review the best is prevention, or to totally remove a species when they are first introduced, but that harvesting incentives may have real potential.
- 2016 WholeFoods, Wegmans, + Publix started selling Lion Fish, promoting it as “an invasive species.”
- 2021 Dog-treat companies are incorporating nutria and Asian carp into their regular offerings (1).
- 2022 a Michigan man reportedly shipped invasive lampreys from the Great Lakes to England where they are eaten, in this case for the new king’s coronation as Lamprey Pie.
Invasive Species to Eat
Here is just a sample of some of the invaders we can eat, and some we have been eating unaware they are an invasive species.
Asian Carp: (WideOpenEats) Their appearance in the Chesapeake Bay and the Great Lakes makes them a huge threat to not only the native fish and crustaceans but also the native plants in the river and lake beds. Thankfully, these invasive creatures are scrumptious. With a light, white meat on their bones, they are perfect pan-fried or on the grill.
Asian Shore Crab: Edible and along the North Carolina shore up to Maine.
Asian Tiger Shrimp: (WideOpenEats) If you like shrimp, then you are going to love these delicious, lobster-sized ones. These monster-sized crustaceans are cannibals who eat their smaller cousins all along the coast of the United States, and are native to Australia.
Garlic Mustard: A medicinal herb that can be eaten raw or sautéed.
Himalayan blackberries: Various posts indicate that in the Pacific Northwest, many of the wild blackberries are these Himalayan blackberries. Tastes the same.
Lion Fish🙁WideOpenEats) It turns out, though, that these fish are fantastic to eat. They taste like a cross between lobster and Chilean sea bass. In fact, they’ve become so popular that this fish is making a regular appearance at restaurants all over the Cayman Islands from its East Coast to its West Coast. Lionfish are high in Omega 3 fatty acids and low in saturated fat. The apparently are a flaky white fish, perhaps most similar to Halibut.
Nutria: Is an invasive rodent in California and Louisiana. Used in dog treats, but some posts indicate they are tasty to humans as well, tasting like rabbit. (There are very graphic videos on how to catch, butcher, and cook nutria on line, but I chose not to post them.)
- Wildlife CA: In California, nutria are classified as a nongame mammal. Fish and Game Code §4152 specifies property owners or their agents (who possess written permission from the owner or tenant) may take nutria at any time by any legal means to address damage to crops or property.
Wild Boar: I have tasted dried sausage made from wild boar and it was a very gamey, leaner taste that I happened to have liked. I ate it with cheese and crackers, and some wine as I recall.
- Wildlife CA: A hunting license and wild pig tag are generally required to take wild pig in California. General Season: Open all year. Bag and Possession Limit: There is no daily bag or possession limit for wild pigs.
Other edible plants include purslane (succulent with peppery flavor), dandelions, watercress, and fennel (slight licorice flavor).
Rivers and Lake Invaders
The Guardian wrote about marbled crayfish clones that are taking over many German rivers and lakes. This all-female, freshwater crustacean is cloning itself and spreading exponentially all over any body of water it can find, adapting as it goes to the environment around itself.
Lukas Bosch, the co-founder of Holycrab!, a biodiversity startup, hopes the marbled crayfish’s nutritional value will tempt Germans who are looking for sustainable alternatives to intensively farmed meat. The company is turning invasive species – from raccoons, Egyptian geese and wild boar to other crayfish, such as Chinese mitten crabs – into culinary delicacies, teaming up with top Berlin chefs to appeal to the ecological sensibilities of German diners.
Also in Germany companies are looking to turning the crayfish’s shells into biodegradable plastics, such as straws.
In Madagascar, they already knew about these marbled crayfish, as they have decimated local fish populations by eating their eggs, and have had negative impact on rice production. Scientists launched a project to gage the impact of the crayfish on human health. At the end, they considered the fast growing crayfish could be an important and cheap source of high-quality protein for Madagascans. This area has one of the poorest populations in the world where ~42% of children are affected by stunted growth due to inadequate nutrition.
Invasion Can Turn Cultural + Economic
All of this is complicated, take an example like Hawaii and feral pigs. It is thought, due to DNA studies of current feral pigs in Hawaii, that the polynesians introduced them ~800 years ago. These pigs fit right in environmentally, and yet have also caused incredible damage to indigenous habitats endangering other plants and animals. Plus, these pigs eat a very flammable and invasive set of grasses that grow over parts of the islands, thus preventing devastating fires. Meanwhile, cultural activities of Indigenous Peoples (and tourists) now include hunting and roasting pigs.
The truth about our planet is we are in the middle of climate change, and while no environment stays static, it seems that right now changes are visible everywhere. The question is how do we juggle competing demands. While we may want to save the native fishes in South America what if the invasive Paiche fish provides employment and work opportunities to local and poor tribes? The invasive species could become an important commodity in areas that are normally starved for both attention and resources.
Can We Eat Away an Invasion?
Some people say no, we cannot, but there are several arguments made pro and con.
Some argue that, for this concept to work, you really have to eat a lot of that particular animal or plant. So much so, that death rate exceeds their birth rate. One of the amazing things biology can do is to compensate for losses, and thus you might find that reducing the population will actually spur on an explosive birth rate. But even before that happens, who is to say that all the invasive species taste good to humans? Or are even edible.
Some are very upfront and say that we cannot eat all the invasive species, for many of them are not healthy to consume.
- Florida pythons have mercury and should not be eaten (2).
- Some Louisiana wild boars are riddled with diseases (3).
- Zebra mussels are loaded with toxins (4).
- Asian Carp are great tasting, but very full with bones everywhere (5).
Then there is the matter of capitalistic influences on marketing invasive species as the newest fad food. That is, if we make people aware of how good this crab tastes, its prices go up, next thing you know people are farming the animal for sale to restaurants. Or worse, they may help spread the species in order to expand and improve profits.
- “There is much skepticism among invasive-species biologists all over the world about prompting industries that harvest feral animals,” says Tim Low, author of Feral Future: The Untold Story of Australia’s Exotic Invaders, “Once you have set up an industry, you may find you have created a problem rather than a solution.”
- The counter is to look to the animals we have made extinct (pigeons eaten) or nearly driven to extinction (buffalo) to prove the point that we are a heavy influence on what lives and dies as a species.
The food invades the area and mingles with the local cuisine and can also become part of local cultures. The Hawaiian boar I mention above is a good example of this happening (6).
To hunt, process and sell invasive species for food, one would have to change the laws in some areas where it is currently illegal to transport or market these animals or plants (7). There are federal and local state laws that must be followed.
Plus, I could not find any studies that definitively say eating removes the population (8 2019).
Is This Ethical?
TreeHugger sets it up this way: If a meat-eater could divert his or her dietary habits from the usual selection of farmed beef, poultry, and pork to include invasive species, this could decrease at least some of the ecological burden created by conventional meat production, while hopefully improving another ecological problem – that of the invaders themselves.
First, by definition invasive species are harming native wildlife, plants, and ecosystems and therefore should be removed from continuing to cause harm. They are not native to the area and thus not a natural progression of environmental change, but an accidental introduction by humans into the environment. It is proper and responsible to clean up the accident by removing the animal, plant, or insect from the area.
Second, it seems that there are invasive species that Americans will not eat, but are considered delicacies in other parts of the world. So processing these invaders for overseas consumption seems like a really good business, such as the Asian Carp to China and the Boas to Burma. It removes the invasive species from where it does not belong, but further uses them for food in areas where eating them is considered part of their cuisine.
Third, where feasible, eating these invasive species seem to be ethical and sustainable, for they are currently and truly free-ranging wild animals and plants without natural enemies. This could reduce the need for farmed animals, and may up the reliance on hunting and gathering.
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So in ending, I do not think we can afford to trivialize the complex issues surrounding the invasions of non-native species. It takes a thorough consideration of what harm they are doing, then a multi-pronged attack that must happen as soon as we are aware of the invasion (while their numbers are low). But clearly, prevention is the best plan of action, and the hardest to do in todays global economy and global food systems.
At the same time, climate is changing and animals, insects, plants and all of life may find itself migrating to more habitable places; soon enough, we might all become invasive species.
—Patty
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