Gravy · Southern Foodways Alliance

Virginia Has the Blue Catfish Blues

April 1, 2026·28 min·2 clips

A billion pounds of invasive blue catfish are devouring the Chesapeake Bay, pushing Virginia's seafood industry to the brink.

1. Gravy, a Southern Foodways Alliance podcast, follows producer Anya Groner along the Virginia coast of the Chesapeake Bay to investigate whether the blue catfish invasion can be solved by eating them. 2. Dr. Michael Schwartz, Associate Director of Virginia Tech's Seafood and Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Hampton, Virginia, opens the episode identifying blue catfish as an apex predator with no natural predators in the bay. 3. The episode's central question is whether a catastrophic environmental problem — an out-of-control invasive species — can be turned into a commercial opportunity through consumer demand. 4. Blue catfish were introduced to the James, Rappahannock, and York Rivers in the 1970s as a trophy fishery for recreational anglers; no one anticipated they would migrate into the brackish Chesapeake Bay and out-compete native species. 5. Dr. Schwartz estimates the total biomass of blue catfish in the Chesapeake Bay at between 750 million and 1 billion pounds — more than the biomass of every other species in the bay combined. 6. Dr. Jacob Barney, director of the Invasive Species Collaborative at Virginia Tech, explains that only a small proportion of introduced species become invasive, using the brown tree snake in Guam as an example: two individuals hitchhiked on a plane after World War II and drove 13 of 22 breeding bird species extinct by the 1980s. 7. Barney and his students have hosted invasive species potlucks for 15 years, sampling dishes including Asian carp skewers with wineberry balsamic drizzle and cookies made with cricket flour. 8. Scrimp Shack owner Kyle Rowley, who grew up near Newport News and owns a franchise of 14 restaurants across Virginia and North Carolina, added blue catfish to the menu after research consistently implicated the species in native fish declines. 9. Rowley explains that because blue catfish are apex predators eating blue crabs, juvenile menhaden, rockfish, and croaker, their flesh takes on the flavor of those prey, making them unusually flavorful. 10. Reporter Anya Groner describes the fried blue catfish fillets at Scrimp Shack as firm, flaky, and among the best catfish she has eaten, but Rowley says customer demand remains slow and few other restaurants are stocking the fish. 11. Dr. Shelby White of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science studies the seafood economy and reports that the average age of commercial fishermen in the region is over 55, with young people no longer seeing a future in the industry. 12. Dr. White notes that blue catfish sold for as low as $0.20 per pound and up to $1.10 per pound, compared to the higher prices fetched by native flounder and croaker that are now disappearing. 13. Mead Amory of Amory Seafood in Hampton, a fourth-generation fishmonger in business for 109 years, initially refused to buy blue catfish but reversed course as native species disappeared; last year his operation processed 850,000 pounds of catfish and only 50,000 pounds of all other Chesapeake Bay species. 14. Amory says Vietnamese catfish imports are cheap and widely available in grocery stores, making it impossible for him to compete on price despite the freshness and sustainability of his locally caught product. 15. Dr. Schwartz reports that the Virginia Marine Products Board has taken blue catfish to Barcelona, Singapore, and Norway, where buyers ask how soon they can receive container loads of IQF (individually quick frozen) fillets — demand no current processor can meet. 16. A Virginia Tech economic study estimates that a robust blue catfish commercial fishery could generate an economic impact of approximately $1.1 billion and support around 7,000 jobs. 17. Dr. Schwartz notes that only a quarter of each catfish can be processed into fillets; the remainder currently goes to pet food or landfills, but the carcasses could be converted to collagen, fish oil pills, and calcium supplements. 18. Marine biologist Dr. Mary Fabrizio warns that building a commercial fishery could entrench the invasion: her computer models show that removing catfish reduces competition among survivors, causing the remaining fish to grow faster, mature sooner, and reproduce at higher rates. 19. The episode features a mix of on-location audio from Scrimp Shack and Amory Seafood, laboratory interviews, and narration from reporter Groner, giving it the texture of a documentary radio piece. 20. Environmentally curious listeners interested in food systems, invasive species, or the economics of commercial fishing will find this episode substantive; those seeking cooking instruction or personal narrative may want a different Gravy episode.

As heard by us

A grounded Chesapeake food story where invasive blue catfish become both ecological problem and dinner-table test.

Virginia Has the Blue Catfish Blues follows an invasive fish from ecological threat to lunch counter, keeping its focus on the Chesapeake Bay and the people trying to make sense of what is happening there.

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You want a Chesapeake Bay story where dinner starts to look like part of the response.

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