House passes bill aimed at boosting harvests of invasive fish; some processors object
Efforts to curb invasive blue catfish in the Chesapeake Bay by promoting their use in pet food have drawn federal support recently, though some warn the move could backfire.
The U.S. House of Representatives on March 17 passed a bill, co-sponsored by Reps. Sarah Elfreth, D-MD, and Rob Wittman, R-VA, that would provide federal grants to pet and animal food manufacturers to subsidize what they pay Maryland and Virginia watermen and seafood processors for the catfish. NOAA would be authorized to award $2 million in grants each year and to report on how — or whether — it increased blue catfish harvests.
Introduced in the 1970s to a few Virginia rivers as a new sport fishing option, blue catfish have since spread throughout the Bay watershed, where they feed on other fish and juvenile blue crabs, impacting those traditional fisheries.
Maryland and Virginia have both encouraged the commercial harvest of blue catfish to mitigate their spread, but consumers have been slow to take to the new menu option, and the low prices watermen earn to catch them has limited the growth of the fishery. Concerned policy makers have eyed the pet and animal feed industry for several years as a potentially significant market that could increase the demand for the fish.
“While we can all do our part and order blue catfish when we see it on a menu,” Elfreth said, “this is not a problem that we alone can eat our way out of.”
The measure passed the House overwhelmingly on a largely bipartisan vote of 320-66. Other co-sponsors included Reps. Steny Hoyer, D-MD and Jen Kiggans, R-VA, and all but one of the co-chairs of the congressional Chesapeake Bay Watershed Caucus supported it.
The dissenting caucus leader was Rep. Andy Harris, R-MD, who issued a statement calling the bill well-intentioned but counterproductive. He cited a March 12 letter opposing the bill from a coalition of four Maryland seafood companies that process blue catfish.
They complained that the measure, by associating blue catfish with animal food, could undermine their efforts to portray the nonnative species as “a high quality and desirable protein-rich seafood product.” The coalition also worried that by letting pet food manufacturers pay watermen above-market prices for their harvest, it might divert the supply of blue catfish their companies need to survive and grow.
“Now is not the time,” Harris said, “to undercut the great work of these small businesses and existing investments made by the taxpayers by subsidizing the purchase of product suitable for human consumption for the sole benefit of pet-food companies — especially when these processors are already selling fish byproducts unsuitable for human consumption for the purposes of conversion into pet food.”
The measure now awaits Senate consideration.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it was awarding $1 million grants each to two businesses to increase their capacity to process blue catfish. One of the recipients is BSA Seafood LLC, which will use the funds to install new equipment at its processing plant in Denton, MD, and expand distribution of catfish to restaurants, markets and institutions.
Harris issued a statement applauding the USDA grant to the business in his Eastern Shore district. The funds will enable the company to remove more than 500,000 pounds of blue catfish annually from the Bay’s tributaries and add 20 new jobs to its 15-person workforce.
The other recipient is Chippin Inc., a company based in Arlington, VA, that markets premium, “planet-friendly” dog food nationwide. It plans to upgrade its processing plant in Illinois to incorporate blue catfish into its dog food products.