The Economist: The Asian carp in the United States is flooded, and it is necessary to change the name to Copi?

Original title:

Rebranding the Asian carp

Copicat

To hook diners, an invasive species of carp gets a new name

This is not a carp

It has worked before, for the Patagonian toothfish and the slimehead

This is not a carp

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What’s not to like about Asian carp? Nutritious, mild and delicate in flavour, it can be filleted, deep-fried or minced into fish cakes—just mind the bones. But Americans do not care for it. For starters, they confuse the fish with the common (or European) carp that is a bottom feeder, a much-maligned group. Yet tempting people to eat more Asian carp could boost biodiversity in rivers across America’s South and Midwest. With a new campaign, officials in Illinois hope to lure diners.

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The carp was brought from Asia in the 1970s to help clean aquafarms in Arkansas. (They clear the water of plankton and algae, earning them the name of “filter feeders”.) From there they escaped into the Mississippi and propagated northward, outcompeting native fish species for food. Now they are abundant in the Illinois River. Ecologists worry they will evade barriers in the waterways around Chicago and enter the Great Lakes, reducing the native fish diversity there.

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In 2018 the Illinois Department of Natural Resources decided it would “recast” how Asian carp is perceived. Marketers were brought in. They cooked up a new name, which was released on June 22nd: copi (for copious). Nick Adam of Span, the agency behind the rebranding, says the goal was to shed the fish’s reputation as one only for adventurous eaters. Focus groups described copi as “cute” and “manageable”.

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Asian carp is not the first to get a makeover. The Patagonian toothfish is marketed in America as Chilean sea bass (it is neither a bass nor native to Chile). The foul-sounding slimehead has been much better known as orange roughy since the late 1970s. And managing invasive species by harvesting them is not a novel idea either. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a federal agency, exhorts people to eat lionfish, which threaten reefs along the Atlantic coast and in the Caribbean. Louisiana’s wildlife department offers recipes for nutria, a semi-aquatic rodent with an irrepressible breeding habit. Ragondin à l’orange, anyone?

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Lionfish is quite well-liked, notwithstanding its 18 venomous fin spines; the toothfish’s new name was such a hit that it arguably contributed to its overfishing. But evidence is mixed about whether harvesting to control an invasive species is effective. With Asian carp, only larger fish are targeted for human consumption. A study by researchers at Michigan State University recommended that fishermen be given incentives to catch small ones too, for use in fertiliser and fish meal.

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But creating demand also risks impeding efforts to reduce numbers. Prairie Rivers Network, an environmental group, has opposed the copi rebranding because it seems to “incentivise a long-term sustainable carp fishery in Illinois waters”. Much will depend on whether America’s gourmands cop on to copi.

(Congratulations on reading, this English vocabulary is about 482)

Originally from: The Economist United States section, July 9, 2022

Intensive reading notes from: The Path to Free English

Translation of this article: Irene

This article edited proofreader: Irene

For personal English learning communication only.

【Supplementary Information】 (from the Internet)

Asian carp Asian carp is a carp of the Asian cyprinid family, which is a common name for the carp of the family Cyprinidae, such as bluefish, grass carp, bighead carp, silver carp, crucian carp and carp in the American community. Asian carp consumes as much aquatic plants, plankton or wild mussels as 40% of their body weight per day.

In 1963, in order to prevent the wanton growth of phytoplankton in the water body and purify the water body, the United States introduced grass carp from China, and in the following years, it introduced bighead carp, silver carp and bluefish, which achieved results. However, the Asian carp immediately opened a crazy invasion mode, with a hungry appetite, strong reproductive ability, no advantage of natural enemies, all the way to the lake, wreaking havoc in more than a dozen states in the United States, soon became the absolute hegemon of rivers and lakes, some places even accounted for 90% of the total number of fish, resulting in the inability of native aquatic animals to survive, a large number of aquatic plant resources depleted. In January 2014, the Obama administration had to spend $18 billion to build a levee over 25 years to prevent Asian carp from invading the Great Lakes, the last reserve for native freshwater fish.

Filter feeders are a type of fish that use gill rakers to filter tiny plankton, bacteria, organic detritus, etc. in water, and representative species are silver carp, bighead carp, etc., which are traditional farmed fish in the mainland. The most common species of filter-feeding fish are silver carp and bighead carp among the four major fishes.

European carp: It mostly inhabits the middle and lower layers of the water, and is dominated by the muddy and sandy still waters of the nutrient-rich waters, and has a collective group swimming habit. It is an omnivorous fish, dominated by small invertebrates and benthic animals. Asian carp is mistaken by the American people as a bottom fish and is heavily polluted. In fact, The Asian carp is a upper-class fish that feeds on plankton in the water. Compared to large carnivorous fish in the same waters, Asian carp is a relatively lightly contaminated species in the food chain.

Focus groups, also known as group interviews, are a commonly used qualitative research method in social science research. Typically conducted by a research-trained investigator, a semi-structured approach (i.e., a pre-set part of the interview question) is used to talk to a group of respondents.

The main purpose of the group interview was to listen to respondents' views on the research questions. Respondents were selected from the population studied. The beauty of group interviews is that researchers can often make unexpected discoveries from free discussion.

Orange Roughy, a long-lived fish, is a New Zealand redfish also known as golden yellow croaker, which belongs to the science of perch totoaba and belongs to the same group as the Chinese giant yellow croaker.

【Key sentences】(3)

And managing invasive species by harvesting them is not a novel idea either.

Controlling invasive fish through fishing is nothing new.

But evidence is mixed about whether harvesting to control an invasive species is effective.

However, the evidence on "whether fishing is effective to control invasive fish" is mixed.

But creating demand also risks impeding efforts to reduce numbers.

But creating demand also has the potential to increase the number of carp.

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