http://www.boston.com/dailynews/120/nation/FARM_SCENE_Catfish_farmers_cou:.shtml

FARM SCENE: Catfish farmers could profit from prehistoric paddlefish

By Steve Bailey, Associated Press, 4/30/2001 01:49

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) The paddlefish, with its gaping mouth and thrusting platypus-like bill, isn't the prettiest animal.

But a Kentucky researcher believes that the prehistoric fish will look a lot better to fish farmers if they take a closer look at its economic upside.

''I think the paddlefish can become for Kentucky what the catfish has been for states like Mississippi and Arkansas for years,'' said Steven Mims, an associate professor and principal researcher for the Aquaculture Research Center at Kentucky State University. ''Done right, paddlefish farming and production could become a lucrative venture, not only for individual farmers but for the state.''

The fish are valuable not only for their meat but also for their eggs, which can be processed into caviar. Mims believes there also is money to be made in restocking ponds, lakes and rivers in Kentucky and other states.

The paddlefish, or spoonbill cat, is one of the largest freshwater fish in the United States. It's common in 22 states that have large bodies of water set aside for irrigation or power generation within the Mississippi River basin, including Kentucky. Only five states Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas and Illinois allow paddlefish to be caught commercially.

Norman Penner is one of a handful of western Kentucky catfish farmers who added paddlefish to their ponds last year. He has raised catfish for about five years and has six 5-acre ponds on his farm enough to bring in about 5,000 pounds of catfish per acre per year.

''I'll do even better with the paddlefish,'' Penner said. ''They don't eat the fish feed, so they really don't cost me very much.''

Closely related to sturgeon, paddlefish are filter feeders most of their lives, sucking down tiny free-floating animals called zooplankton and byproducts of other fish.

That makes them a perfect complement for farmers already commercially growing catfish, said Ronald Fleming, an assistant professor of agricultural economics at the University of Kentucky.

''You can easily raise both species and get two crops out of the same pond,'' Fleming said. ''And you're lowering the cost of your catfish because you're getting another fish at very little, if any, cost.''

Unlike catfish, paddlefish meat is firm, boneless and very similar to sturgeon in taste and texture. Smoked paddlefish wholesales for between $9 and $12 per pound and retails at $16 a pound or higher.

The greatest profit potential, however, lies in the paddlefish's eggs. With a decline in sturgeon stock in the Caspian Sea, demand has increased for replacement sources of caviar.

A mature female can produce up to 6 pounds of roe, worth as much as $300 per pound at retail, Fleming said. The taste compares favorably with osetra, the second-most popular type of sturgeon caviar after beluga, he said.

One drawback is that it takes nearly eight years before the female begins to produce caviar-quality roe. But paddlefish farmers also can raise fish for restocking and recovery programs.

The state bought more than 700 paddlefish from Penner in March to restock the Kentucky River after a fish kill caused by a bourbon spill at a Lawrenceburg distillery.

Mims supports a production strategy known as reservoir ranching. Young fish stocked into a lake would feed on the natural food supply and be harvested with nets after two or more years.

A small percentage could be harvested each year for meat or stocking and recovery programs. The remainder would mature to be harvested for roe production, Mims said.

''We have a quarter of a million acres of public lakes in Kentucky,'' he said. ''What we'd like to do is use less than 10 percent of that water and turn this into a Kentucky industry.''

Ted Crowell, assistant director of fisheries for the state, raised several concerns about reservoir ranching.

''What you're doing is putting a commercially valuable critter, in some cases worth hundreds of dollars, into an environment meant for sport fishing,'' Crowell said. ''People start seeing dollar signs and will do anything, both legally and illegally, to get their hands on those fish.''

He said the harvesting process also presents problems.

''Nets don't care what they catch,'' Crowell said. ''To say that the huge commercial demand and the net harvesting wouldn't hurt sport fishing is pretty naive.''

Mims and Fleming, however, are convinced the project could be successful.

''The reason it hasn't been done before is that no one really has ever considered the option,'' Fleming said. ''That's what we're doing trying to make people see the potential benefits and returns.''

-- Anonymous, April 30, 2001

Answers

I've read that farm-raised fish (salmon and catfish come to mind) tend to be raised in water contaminated by agricultural and other runoff. Makes sense, since many of these farms are in ag areas.

-- Anonymous, April 30, 2001