In terms of appetite and willingness to gorge on just about anything, blue catfish have few peers in the Chesapeake Bay, experts say.
“They’re eating everything, anything they can get their mouths around,” said Noah Bressman, a fish biologist at Salisbury University in Maryland.
Now, a clearer picture is emerging of their ecological toll. Two new studies based in tidal rivers on opposite sides of the Bay show that the invasive species is gobbling up prized native aquatic life, such as menhaden and blue crabs, at high rates.
