Former researcher at UAPB honored
If one asks Andrew Mitchell about his career accomplishments, he is apt to shrug and say they aren’t that impressive.
“I don’t feel like I’ve done that much,” Mitchell says.
But others feel quite differently about the fish biologist.
The National Aquaculture Association announced recently that Mitchell is the recipient of the Joseph P. McCraren Award for Distinguished Lifetime Contributions to the Aquaculture Industry.
Mitchell is a former researcher at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff Aquaculture/Fisheries Center of Excellence and is currently working for the Arkansas Department of Agriculture’s Fish Inspection Program.
To get a sense of his impact on the industry, one has to step back 20 years when Delta catfish farmers were feeling the financial impact of the invasive flatworm.
At the time, Mitchell worked at the Harry K. Dupree Stuttgart National Aquaculture Re
search Center, and he would soon turn his attention to finding a way to combat the flatworm, otherwise known as Bolbophorus confusus. Mitchell won out.
This isn’t his first recognition, and his contributions to the fish farming industry continue to be celebrated.
After the award was announced late last week, Paul W. Zajicek, National Aquaculture Association executive director, said the decision was made by a 22-member board, all farmers.
“He (Mitchell) is highly regarded and his work was distinguished and it was critical,” Zajicek said.
Mitchell is an expert on Asian carp and developed the National Triploid Grass Carp Inspection Program that is still in use today.
Mitchell has published more than 60 peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals that encompass various aspects of the control, treatment and identification of numerous bacterial, parasitic and fungal diseases of cultured warmwater fish . He is a recognized leader in the fish health community and is recognized internationally for his work with parasites of warmwater fish, Zajicek said.
Jim Parsons, president of the National Aquaculture Association, applauded Mitchell’s work.
“The U.S. aquaculture community improves farming practices through the unstinting efforts of many unsung heroes,” Parsons said. “Drew Mitchell is truly an exemplary representative for the many public employees who work as unsung heroes every day to solve the myriad of problems that face fish, shellfish and seaweed farmers. As a scientist that could really dig into obtuse biological issues, Drew spoke to us in our language to help us, and the fish we grow, be the best farmers and the finest farmed fish in the world. For these reasons we can never adequately recognize Drew and his peers for their amazing work.”
Mike Freeze, grass carp and catfish farmer of Scott, Ark., and former Arkansas Game and Fish commissioner, said there possibly wouldn’t be a fish industry without Mitchell.
“Drew Mitchell has devoted his whole life to helping others, especially fish farmers. Drew even came out of retirement (after his first retirement) to make sure fish farmers could get their fish health inspections conducted, so we could sell our fish. Words alone cannot express how much our nation’s aquaculture industry owes Drew Mitchell but hopefully this award will help convey our sincere appreciation to Drew,” Freeze said.
Mitchell said, “I’m very humbled by this highly respected award. It’s an honor.”
A LIFETIME OF WORK
Mitchell was born in Africa and studied at Glassboro State College in New Jersey, and eventually earned postgraduate degrees from Auburn University and the University of Memphis at Tennessee.
The area around Stuttgart, especially Lonoke County, is unofficially called the “Gold- and BaitFish Capital of the World.”
About two years ago, Kayla McCoy, a UAPB fisheries researcher, said, “We have several of the biggies,” such as the world’s largest bait-fish, hybrid stripedbass, goldfish and grass carp farms. According to the Arkansas Farm Bureau, which tracks farming industry numbers, “Arkansas is considered the birthplace of warm water aquaculture.”
The area proved the perfect fit for Mitchell.
He said, “It’s been an honor to work with fish farmers. It’s a tremendous industry.”
After 34 years, Mitchell retired from the Aquaculture Research Center at Stuttgart in 2011. In early 2012, he stepped into the director and fish health specialist position at the UAPB Aquaculture/Fisheries Center of Excellence. It was supposed to be temporary but after nine months, “interim” was dropped from his title.
Prior to her position as an extension fish health specialist and research professor at Auburn University, Anita Kelly worked with Mitchell at UAPB.
“He is a wealth of knowledge…and is always willing to share it,” Kelly said.
Freeze said the accolades don’t reflect the far-reaching impact of his research the publications he penned, as well as his 92-page book, “Finfish health in the United States (1609-1969): Historical perspective, pioneering researchers and fish health workers, and annotated bibliography.”
Freeze is a past president of the National Aquaculture Association, the American Fish Farmers Federation and the Striped Bass Growers Association. He said it’s impossible to put a dollar amount to Mitchell’s contribution to the industry, but it’s safe to say that it’s in the millions.
Mitchell said, “I felt the importance of my job was working for the fish farming industry and doing all I can to keep it economically viable.”
Kelly disagrees with Mitchell’s modest assessment of his impact on the industry, saying, “He accomplished so much.”
CONTRIBUTIONS TO CATFISH
The flatworm’s life cycle is a complex one, Mitchell wrote in an article, “Nailing the Snail That Harbors a Fish Parasite,” published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s “AgResearch Magazine” in September 2002.
The flatworm needs three hosts during its life. The worms are found in the migrating American white pelicans’ intestinal tracts and when the birds migrate, its larvae are often released into catfish ponds. From there, the larva penetrates the ram’s horn snail, Planorbella trivolvis, and it multiplies and matures before leaving its host.
It’s then that the catfish are in danger.
Fingerlings and juvenile fish often die from cysts caused by larva that form just below the skin — often at rates of 90 percent — while in more mature, larger fish, the appetite is suppressed, leading to slow growth and un-marketability.
Mitchell knew he needed to break the flatworm’s life cycle but the pelican is a protected species, and by the time the catfish is infected, it was too late. Additionally, flatworms can’t be transmitted from one fish to another.
So he turned his attention to the middle-stage host, developing a chemical (copper sulfate and citric acid) combination that targeted the freshwater snail. It worked.
Freeze, also co-owner of Keo Fish Farm in Keo, said, because of Mitchell’s background and experience, he was able to effectively and successfully address the problem. For this, Mitchell earned the Catfish Farmers of Arkansas’s Service Award in 2009.
The next year, he was awarded the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer, and the Mid-Continent Region Excellence in Transfer Award for a treatment used to prevent catfish eggs from dying of fungal infections.
He was instrumental in designing a low flow system that tested for bacteria and is still used.
BEYOND CATFISH
While Mitchell’s well known for his breakthroughs in ichthyology health and parasites, he had a huge financial impact on the fish farming industry with the establishment of a procedure that ensures grass carp are sterile before shipping.
Imported in 1963, the plant-eating fish with Asian roots was spawning unchecked and by the early-1980s, there were reports of extensive damage by the fish. This caused most states to forbid the use of grass carp to control aquatic vegetation. But with Mitchell’s new procedure, an industry was born.
Even today, the fish can’t be sold unless proven unable to reproduce, said Freeze, also a Triploid Grass Carp producer.
“Basically Drew designed the program. The industry owes itself to his work,” Freeze said.
Mitchell said, “It was probably as big as anything that I’ve done in this field.”
It had nothing to do with fish health but resulted in the development of an industry that was worth millions to Central Arkansas fish farmers like Freeze.
For this, Mitchell earned the United States Fish and Wildlife Service Award in 2008 for his pioneering work on the National Triploid Grass Carp Inspection Program.
Almost as a follow up, Mitchell developed a treatment for golden shiners and grass carp infected by Asian Tapeworms that proved 100 percent effective.
In 2009, he was given the Joe Hogan Award for his innovations and enduring research, and the S.F. Snieszko Distinguished Service Award. Then in 2013, he received the U.S. Aquaculture Society Distinguished Life-Time Achievement Award.
Mitchell said much of his motivation was “simply about helping others. It really felt good when a farmer bought a sick fish in and I was able to find out what was wrong and provide treatment.”
“Drew Mitchell has devoted his whole life to helping others, especially fish farmers. Drew even came out of retirement (after his first retirement) to make sure fish farmers could get their fish health inspections conducted, so we could sell our fish. Words alone cannot express how much our nation’s aquaculture industry owes Drew Mitchell but hopefully this award will help convey our sincere appreciation to Drew.” —Mike Freeze, Arkansas catfish farmer