Fish ‘n’ Chips… in Laos?

I had the best fish and chips of my life last week, and I was nowhere near England. We were traveling in Thailand and Laos for the past two weeks. In Luang Prabang, Laos, a sleepy river town along the Mekong River, still touched by the influence of French colonization (at least in cuisine and architecture), after three days of weathering the near 110F heat (and ~80% humidity), we treated ourselves to some Western food for dinner. I had a brief internal struggle over whether I should order fish and chips in Asia, but then desire took over, and I went for it. (However, I shouldn’t have worried, given the deliciousness of the Pain au Chocolat all over town). And what I realized—in between exclaiming for the 27^th time to Pete how delicious it was—is that I’ve never really liked fish and chips because of the fish (not because of the way it was cooked). Fishy-tasting haddock has nothing on the light, fresh Mekong mystery fish. Inevitably, this got me curious about Mekong fish species, and the state of the fishery there.

Delicious Laotian food, featuring brown sticky rice and chicken laap

It turns out that the Mekong has the second highest fish species richness in the world, surpassed only by the Amazon.¹ Some of its native fish species look as though they have been lifted straight from the Pleistocene—600lb giant catfish (which I admit I fantasized would leap out of the water by our boat), and a freshwater stingray that supposedly reaches 1200 pounds! However, in what is a sadly familiar story, the fish diversity is threatened, as many of these species are suffering severe population declines from a combination of overfishing, water pollution, and upstream dams. This is particularly concerning for a country where much of the rural population relies on local fish as the cheapest source of protein.¹ At the moment, the main threat to these fish is hydropower development, which under certain development projections could cut off 81% of the Lower Mekong Basin to fish migration, and turn 43% of the this section of river into a reservoir.² There are currently 16 dams in the Lower Mekong, 47 more planned for completion by 2015, and 77-88 more to be completed by 2030… an astounding rate of development.² But unlike the U.S., which is currently removing more dams than it’s building, many developing countries are still in the dam building phase. As well as being concerning, this presents an opportunity to research alternative, or at least more environmentally sound, solutions. Perhaps we should move to Laos.

Mekong River at sunset, Luang Prabang

Local fish at market

 We got to observe some interesting native fishing practices while in Laos. On our daytrip up the Mekong to a cave full of over 4000 Buddha statues, we saw people in small wooden fishing boats whacking the water with long sticks. At first, we couldn’t fathom what they were doing—the parting of the Mekong?—but then we saw them jump in the water and haul in fishing nets. Somehow, slapping the water with the poles was encouraging, or even herding, the fish into the nets. Unfortunately we didn’t have a chance to find out what kind of fish they were catching… but perhaps it’s the same kind that ended up in my belly later that night.

Fisherman on the Mekong

On the boat trip up to Pak Ou Caves

While I’m not sure what kind of fish was served up in the fish and chips that warm night in Luang Prabang—the awkwardness of the language barrier dissuaded me from asking—one way that we, as consumers, can have some sway over the commercial fishery is by being informed fish buyers. My husband and I often embarrass whomever we’re dining out with by asking the waiter where the fish came from (yes, Portlandia style, although I usually forbear from asking the fish’s name). In fact, on our trip to Thailand, we were eating out in an elegant Bangkok restaurant with family, and Pete and I began discussing where the salmon might have come from… only to be greeted by a snort of laughter from across the table. My sister-in-law and her friend had made a bet that we would ask about the salmon (while they cringed in embarrassment)… and indeed, they were right.

In an interesting example of how effective consumer pressure can be, a professor at UC Santa Cruz recently had his Marine Conservation class research which food markets in town sold environmentally sustainable fish, and then create a little pamphlet ranking them (red/yellow/green). Within a week, he got a call from one of the yellow-ranked stores asking how they could change. They were concerned about their public image. Shame, as it turns out, is an excellent motivator. (Even more so than guilt).

We have incredible power as consumers. And the more people that ask where fish comes from when they sit down to eat, the less socially weird it becomes. As “dancing guy” shows, be the one to set the trend…

1) Mekong River Commission (2010). "State of the Basin Report, 2010." MRC, Vientiane, Laos.

2) Baran, E. et al. (2012). “Fish Biodiversity Research in the Mekong Basin.” Ecological Research Monographs.

The Origin of (Exotic) Species

My friend Leighton’s comment on last week’s post – that beaver reintroduction to their native ranges by parachute outdoes dumping fish from airplanes – sparked my idea for this week’s post. Over the course of the past few centuries, there have been many intentional and inadvertent introductions of exotic (non-native) species to areas throughout North America. Some of these exotic species can be beneficial (depending on your viewpoint), some harmless, and some turn into invasives (i.e. non-native species that negatively impact the native ecosystem). Current estimates of the number of exotic species in the U.S. are around 50,000; around 4300 of these are considered invasives.

However, while we often hear about the impacts of exotic species, we don’t usually hear the interesting back-story that brought many of these species to their new homes in the first place. How did they spread? Was it on purpose or by accident? I’ve looked into the stories of several high-impact species that were introduced to North America to find out how they were first introduced, and what their impact has been.

European Honeybees: What’s all the buzz?

Honeybees first arrived in the U.S. in 1622, carried by ship with European settlers determined to have honey in their new home (I don’t blame them there). The only documentation that exists of this first bee introduction is found in a letter from the Virginia Company in London to the Governor of Virginia:

“Wee haue by this Shipp and the Discouerie sent you diurs [diverse] sortes of seedes, and fruit trees, as also Pidgeons, Connies, Peacockes Maistiues [Mastiffs], and Beehives, as you shall by the invoice pceiue [perceive]…”  (Goodwin 1956; Kingsbury 1906:532).

Along with the honeybees, settlers brought many of the agricultural crops that honeybees thrive on and pollinate, thus facilitating a change in the face of the American landscape. As European settlers moved west, many of the plant species with which they were familiar already abounded.  
Honeybees are crucial for pollinating many of the non-native agricultural crops that we rely on today. The advent of Colony Collapse Disorder is therefore extremely concerning, because it threatens the existence of many mainstay crops. However, there are also around 4000 species of (often overlooked) native bees in North America, and many native plants—such as tomatoes, eggplant, pumpkin, blueberries and cranberries—are more efficiently pollinated by these native bees than by honeybees.

Earthworms vs. Ovenbirds

European Earthworms: An Unlikely Suspect

For a species that most of us associate with good garden soil, the earthworm has a surprising dark side to its story. It was first introduced to the U.S. around 1620 in ship ballast (soil and gravel) that was dumped around Jamestown, Pennsylvania to make room for transporting popular American tobacco back to Europe. Earthworms are not native to the post-glacial forests of North America, which are characterized by thick layers of leaf litter. Once introduced to these forests, the silent underground invaders eat their way through the leaf litter, completely changing the face of the forest floor and the entire microbial cycle. This can have serious impacts on everything from native seedling success and tree species composition to native bird populations. One interesting case is the decline of the Ovenbird in the Midwest, which is being blamed on the earthworm; the Ovenbird is a ground-nester, and the decrease in leaf litter abundance is linked to increased predation risk (less shelter) and decreased food availability (bugs in leaf litter) for the Ovenbird. As earthworms continue to spread (mostly through bait-fishing, composting, and other means of human transport), they could potentially have large impacts on our forest ecosystems.

Shakespeare’s Songbirds: The Starling Saga

In 1890 a drug manufacturer (and Shakespeare fanatic) named Eugene Scheiffelin thought it would be romantic to introduce all the songbirds mentioned in Shakespeare’s works to New York City. Over the course of two years, he released 100 European starlings into Central Park. By 1942, their descendants had reached California. (He tried with thrushes and skylarks as well, but these birds failed to thrive).

Starlings are now a common sight in almost every city in the U.S. – they build their nests in cavities and vents, and thrive in urban landscapes. They are now mostly considered pests, and are linked to the spread of various diseases to both livestock and humans, mostly through their droppings. They can also pose serious safety risk to airplanes, as they fly in large murmurations (perhaps the best word ever for a group of animals), which can be quite visually impressive. Efforts to eradicate them have included artificial owls, electric wires, chemicals, broadcasted alarm calls, and recipes for Starling Pie. And yet they remain, perhaps even in your yard at this moment.

“Crazy Jumping Fish” (aka Asian Carp)

Asian Carp were first introduced to the United States by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service – this is an interesting example of how the mission and practices of environmental organizations can change as our understanding of and relationship to the environment changes. These fish were brought to the southern U.S. (Mississippi River in Arkansas) in 1963 as a tool to help aquaculture farms keep vegetation in check. By the 1970s, the carp had escaped the farms and spread northwards into the Illinois River.

Asian Carp jump up to 3m out of the water when startled (often by motor noise)

Asian Carp have become a huge problem in the rivers of the Mississippi basin, and currently threaten to invade the Great Lakes. They have a voracious appetite, and can consume up to 20% of their body weight per day in phytoplankton, which is significant considering they can reach 4 feet and 100 pounds. They also have a high reproduction rate, and compete with native fish species for habitat. In addition, these “crazy jumping fish” can be physically threatening to boaters (see YouTube video). And they have even inspired an important cultural contribution to America, in the form of the Redneck Fishing Tournament of Bath, Illinois.

The possibility of Asian Carp invading the Great Lakes is a serious threat – the Great Lakes support a large commercial fisheries industry – and both government and private agencies are working to come up with solutions to keep them out. One recent innovation is the use of an electrical barrier, implemented by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to keep the carp out of Lake Michigan. So far it seems to be working, although there have been some reports of DNA evidence for carp above the barrier.

As with the case of the beavers mentioned earlier, a recent phenomenon is the re-introduction of native species back to natural historic ranges from which they have been extirpated (e.g. made locally extinct). The goal of these reintroductions is to restore the natural ecosystem, and often to bring back charismatic species that people feel “belong” in the landscape for sentimental (as well as environmental) reasons. This can become controversial in the case of large predators (wolf reintroduction to Yellowstone National Park, for example). But it has also inspired some interesting studies on the success of these reintroduced species (check out my friend's blog on Fishers in the Sierra), and success stories such as the reintroduction of California Condors to the Big Sur region of California. 

Dune restoration: changing the world plant by plant

I had the opportunity to work on a dune restoration project on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington last week. We were working out of Sequim (pronounced ‘Squim’), which is known affectionately as “the blue hole,” because it gets only about half the rainfall of other towns on the peninsula (and approximately the same as L.A., for any Angelenos looking to relocate northwards). The goal of the project was to build/restore a natural bluff along a beach where houses had suffered considerable storm damage in 2006. The houses are built between a long beach and a large wetland, and are thus a classic case of buildings that are not “supposed” to be there. However, given that they are, we were working on helping implement the best option for mitigating winter storms that are continually eroding the beach and causing flooding up over the houses’ decks.

Initially, when the landowners approached Dave (of Shreffler Environmental, the company working on the project), they proposed building a large rock seawall to fend off storms. This is an interesting, and common, case of misguided decision-making in the continual battle between coastal houses and the ever-present, ever-hungry ocean. Namely, the feeling that big (non-porous) walls will protect us better than what nature had there in the first place (i.e. a bluff or wetland). Luckily, the landowners were both amenable to hearing alternatives to the seawall, and also clearly possessed impressive collaborative skills – it’s not often you get 13 landowners to all agree on a land-use plan, and then cooperatively implement it! The idea behind the bluff restoration is that by providing a natural vegetative barrier, the plants will absorb a lot of the water. Imagine a hillside of grass versus a hillside of pavement –water will run off a non-porous surface like pavement much more quickly. The difference is similar with the bluff of dune grass versus a seawall; incidentally, this is one of the many reasons that channelizing rivers is also undesirable (i.e. increased flash flooding potential).

The bluff had already been engineered and built back in 2006, by carting in large amounts of sand and gravel, and pouring it over a bunch of large logs and driftwood anchored together with chain to form a solid base. This formed an ~8ft bluff, on which they planted dune grass. Our goal was to replant dune grass where there was localized erosion. Overall, the dune has held up remarkably well since 2006, with only minor erosion, and no breaches or flooding of the houses.

Canada hiding behind the clouds

Bluff on left, stretching down the beach

The beach we worked on was out on a beautiful spit of land, with views of the Olympic mountains behind us, and the Canadian mountains (and snow-capped Mount Baker) across the bay. We spent three peaceful days on our hands and knees, scooping up sand and plopping the small plants into the holes, stopping occasionally to watch a heron, bald eagle, Northern Harrier, flock of migrating Canada geese, or lone fisherman towing a gill net. We had hopes of talking one of them out of a Coho, but unfortunately they always drifted by before they had caught any. As Dave said, “it’s hard to talk a guy out of a fish when he doesn’t have any.” The Coho are almost all hatchery spawned, from the nearby Dungeness river. And I can confirm that they are indeed delicious.

In the end, we planted around 1000 plants. It was inspiring to participate in a hands-on project with such direct restoration application. Since I’ve recently spent most days staring at fish data on my computer, with the goal of contributing to river restoration practice through more indirect routes, it was nice to actually get out there and dig in the dirt, restoring the beach plant by plant.  

Freshly planted dune grass!

American Gothic (nouveau version)