Seafood has been a staple in Hawaiian diets for generations, since Polynesians settled the islands more than 1,000 years ago. Many communities across Hawai‘i fish locally and commercially, and restaurant menus feature fish that are both native and introduced to Hawaiian waters. However, things have shifted ecologically; native fish species are scarcer while species introduced from elsewhere have invaded habitats.
“I’ve been diving all my life–40 years,” said Maui fisher Adam Wong. “There are many spots where I would target certain [native] fish, and now they’re filled with invasive fishes.”
Species Introductions
Adam Wong is also an education specialist with the State of Hawaiʻi Division of Aquatic Resources (DAR). In the 1950s-60s, DAR introduced multiple species of groupers and snappers from French Polynesia to Hawaiʻi to improve local fish catch volume. Although it seemed like a good idea for island food security, the introductions had the opposite effect. Introduced fishes thrived, invading the archipelago and outcompeting native species in similar habitats. Commercial fishers had a harder time catching the preferred native species, and the percentage of imported fish consumed in Hawaiʻi skyrocketed.
A market analysis reports that from 2008-2019, imports of ocean fishes into Hawaiʻi rose from several million pounds per year to almost 12 million, including species like albacore tuna, mahimahi, and swordfish.
To local chefs and restaurateurs, such as Lee Anne Wong of the Koko Head Café in Honolulu, the reliance on imported fish is troubling. “All this money is spent on imported products, but the middlemen end up making the profit,” Wong lamented.
But what if people ate the invasive species? It could be a win-win situation, improving food security and ecosystems simultaneously. “Mother Nature is offering up a plethora of food…Let’s use it as a food source,” suggested Chef Wong.
During the 1980s, DAR realized that the fish introductions had failed to boost market supply. They had hoped that increasing consumer awareness of edible, introduced fish would drive up demand. But people preferred the native species they were accustomed to eating, and the sustainability angle did not resonate at the time.
The Invaders
Other barriers exist to getting invasive fishes off the reefs and onto people’s plates. For example, a tasty invasive is the large roi (peacock grouper, Cephalopholis argus), which consumes smaller algae-eating fishes. However, during the 1980s, roi started becoming poisonous from the algal toxin ciguatera, acquired from their preferred algae-eating prey.
Keoni AhChong, a Hilo fisher, said, “It’s not usually fatal, but you get really sick with nausea and vomiting.” Thus, for some, roi is off the table in areas where there might be algal blooms.
In a creative move to reduce their numbers, communities host annual “Roi Roundups” that challenge people to spearfish as many roi as possible. Organizers of the Maui Roi Roundup say that a single roi consumes nearly 150 smaller reef fish per year.
Another introduced fish that has flourished in Hawaiʻi is blackchin tilapia (Sarotherodon melanotheron), brought from West Africa to control mosquitoes. Tilapia can be found in polluted water bodies, like Honolulu’s Ala Wai Canal, creating a perception of the wild tilapia as an unpalatable trash fish.
“You’ve got to give them respect. They’re amazing animals, that they can survive in the environments they’re living in,” said Dr. Kai Fox, University of Hawaiʻi Sea Grant College Program’s aquaculture specialist. “But there is no market for the wild tilapia living in the mud.”
The introduced fish with the most cuisine potential is the bright yellow taʻape, or common bluestripe snapper (Lutjanus kasmira), now common in huge schools mixed with other deepwater reef fishes. Taʻape occupy a similar habitat to native Hawaiian snappers, goatfish, mullet, and moi, and therefore often “outcompete them for prey,” explained Athline Clark, former NOAA superintendent of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.
Although they have a mild, fresh flavor, taʻape weren’t quickly adopted into local cuisine. They’re small, averaging about 10 inches long, requiring more work to skin and debone per pound of edible fish.
New Perspectives
Today, thanks to concerted efforts by government and private entities, perspectives, and palates, are changing. People are more aware of the invasive problem and may pay more for sustainable seafood.
In 2015, Conservation International Hawai‘i (CI Hawai‘i) launched an initiative to foster market-based solutions to eating invasives, encouraging collaborations with community partners from fishers to chefs. “Many fishermen can agree that taʻape have displaced a lot of our native fishes,” said Jhana Young, CI Hawai‘i’s seafood senior manager. “By transferring the target to taʻape we can relieve some of the pressure while increasing local food security.”
Deploying a strategy of “eat ‘em to beat ‘em,” CI Hawai‘i teamed up with Oʻahu nonprofit Chef Hui, which promotes food security across the islands, for Hawaiʻi Seafood Month. In 2021, a consortium of chefs, fishers, grocers, and restaurants working with the state’s DAR hosted taʻape-themed dinners, and taʻape has since appeared in food distribution programs. The initiative has improved taʻape’s marketability.
“A wholesaler will pay $3/pound, which is better than it used to be,” said AhChong. In the daytime, he makes a living catching yellowfin tuna in deeper waters, but at night AhChong and his son Noah catch taʻape on hook and line for a bit of extra income.
Still, market barriers persist. Some Hawaiʻi residents buy whole taʻape to steam, boil, or deep fry, comprising a market of those accustomed to eating whole fish. “From a consumer perspective, customers don’t want to deal with bones,” explained Chef Wong, “just like we want the meat shrink-wrapped from the grocery store.”
So, commercially, taʻape is limited.
Still, AhChong predicted that, “It’ll take time, but I can see [taʻape] being popular because it will be more available than other fish. And it will be more affordable.”
Fish Leather
As taʻape continues to find its footing in Hawaiian cuisine, CI advances other initiatives to bring invasive fishes into community livelihoods. With a NOAA Saltonstall-Kennedy grant, they recently explored fish leather as a viable, value-added project for islands.
Janey Chang, an artist and fish skin tanner, ran two Hawaiʻi fish leather workshops that included taʻape, roi, to‘au, and Nile tilapia. Janey showed islanders how to make leathers colored with dyes from plants and insects.
For Chang, fish is more than a commodity. “[I] felt the work in my cells, a tingling, a knowing, a comfort–mixed emotions but basically an enlivening to this skill that helped me along the path to inquiring into my own ancestral lineage.” Janey learned that her father’s family was from a fishing village in China, and calls her teaching a “collective remembering.”
Future Outlook
Given the connection between Hawaiʻi and the sea, tapping into traditional practices and values may help solve the invasive species problem. Adam Wong promotes traditional pono fishing, an ethical approach that emphasizes sustainable harvesting, sharing, and community food security.
“We need to really look at the culture of what we consider food and how to overcome generations of convenience where things are frozen, fileted, and easy to prepare,” Chef Wong counseled.
Find recipes here: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/resource/outreach-materials/taape-bluestripe-snapper-recipes
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