Sometimes it is best to eat your way out of a problem.
The Eel River Pikeminnow Fishing Derby just wrapped up, and it helped clear the Northern California waterway of hundreds of the invasive species.
Sacramento pikeminnows are known to prey on native species and outcompete them for resources, reducing their populations and posing "a significant threat to salmonid recovery," according to California Trout.
In the contest, a winner was named for each of three categories: most pikeminnows caught longer than six inches, most caught longer than one foot, and biggest caught. Thirty-four people competed for $2,000 in prizes, catching 510 pikeminnows, including at least three that were longer than two feet.
The fish cannot be wasted, per local laws, so fisheries ecologists TRIB Research recommended eating them as fried fish cakes, fish balls in noodle soup, or fish tacos. The pikeminnow can also be smoked — though it's essential to remove the Y bones — or used in gardening fertilizer or as crab bait.
"If you can't beat 'em, eat 'em," the conservation group said in a news release about the July 20-Aug. 31 event, via the Lost Coast Outpost.
The directive is complicated, though, because the state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment says children should not eat the fish, nor should women younger than 50 because of high mercury levels.
In addition to threatening Chinook and coho salmon, pikeminnow "have a significant effect on native Pacific Lamprey, steelhead, and Sacramento suckers," per the release.
The effort to control the "remarkably prolific" fish, which arrived in the area in the 1970s, began when the Wiyot Tribe and Stillwater Sciences joined forces in 2018 to monitor the South Fork Eel. They examined the pikeminnow's diet and tested suppression methods, and CalTrout, TRIB Research, the University of California Berkeley, the Bureau of Land Management, and the state Department of Fish and Wildlife have since joined the fight.
The team recently installed a weir, or dam, to prevent the pikeminnow from reaching the upper South Fork Eel, as CalTrout showed, and researchers are using AI to collect data about the fish.
Other communities around the United States have worked to similarly protect ecosystems from invasive fish, and eating the animals is a popular method of control. Some have even been renamed to make them more appealing to consumers.
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