In defense of ‘coarse fish’
Part 2
Continued from June 30... It’s possible that the aforementioned ‘coarse fish stigma’ is related to our own mistakes, of which certain fish species tend to remind us. While searching for commonalities across coarse fish species, I couldn’t help but notice that most coarse fish were ‘generalists.’ In ecological terms, a generalist species is one that can survive and reproduce in an exceptionally wide variety of habitats, and under a very wide range of environmental conditions. When we degrade aquatic ecosystems—by destroying aquatic and terrestrial habitat, introducing nonnative species, overfishing, and altering the climate—ecological ‘specialists’ are often the first to disappear, leaving a reduced population of predominantly generalist species in their wake.
Degraded tributary streams and rivers in the St. Lawrence Basin of eastern Canada are mostly devoid of the native Atlantic Salmon and migratory brook trout that were abundant prior to early industrialization. Indigenous populations of white sucker have also suffered from degradation in this region, but they persist in many of the watersheds where native salmonids did not, due to significant disparities in the different species’ adaptive capacities. Today, native suckers coexist with several species of nonnative Pacific salmonids that were introduced to the Laurentian Great Lakes, filling ecological niches that became vacant after the extirpations of Atlantic salmon and brook trout. If we appreciated native fauna as much as we sometimes say we do, we would view the white sucker with affection, and the artificially introduced Pacific salmonids with disdain, but the opposite is true. Physical uncanniness and associations with environmental deterioration are both likely contributors to this stigma.
Like the physical uncanniness hypothesis, the environmental deterioration hypothesis is troubled by some confounding evidence. For example, the bigmouth buffalo is a fish species native to North America that is also quite sensitive to environmental change, but is frequently regarded as another coarse fish. Basic economics don’t fully explain why some species are valued, and others are not: you may posit that golden trout are valued because they are rare, but bigmouth buffalo and Colorado pikeminnow have also become relatively rare without increasing significantly in value. The true defining criteria are elusive for coarse fish, and probably won’t be uncovered by my efforts alone. So, the remainder of this article focuses briefly on some fast and frugal solutions to this negative stigma.
Now that you’re aware of the arbitrary and often foolish nature of the coarse fish category and stigma, I’m guessing you’ll make modifications to your perceived hierarchy of fish species. Maybe, if I’ve been so persuasive, you’ll reconsider whether or not ‘coarse’ or ‘rough’ fish even exist outside our collective imagination. Education is the first and most obvious solution to a problem that involves our collective consciousness, and virtually all solutions to harmful stigma are augmented if learning precedes them. Now that we properly understand the antiquated concept of coarse fish, we can popularize and foster support for the suckers, gar, and other fishes that we’ve mistreated.
In the taste test that I mentioned at the beginning of this article, all that was required for sheephead to become palatable—and even piquant—alongside walleye and crappie was careful preparation and a brief suspension of prejudice. When just one angler expresses appreciation for a species like river redhorse or longnose gar, the associated coarse fish stigma dissolves at a similar rate. Clearly, we have the ability to decide what fish are and aren’t stigmatized, and arguably no fish should be devalued outside of the most disruptive aquatic invasive species. My essential point is this: negative stigma can be harmful, and our aquatic ecosystems and fisheries will improve if we eliminate the negative stigma associated with many supposed ‘coarse fish.’