Copi eat plankton and algae-so much plankton that other fish get bupkes and native populations dwindle or die out entirely. Although it took decades for copi to arrive in Illinois, once it was there, it quickly upended the ecological balance. By 2010, Illinois had hired him to build up a program to deal with the invasive creature.
“I was traveling around the world talking about these critters,” he says. After it arrived on his home turf, Irons did everything he could to understand them. These fish are, above all else, incredibly adaptable and hardy. Perhaps they would have remained just that, had they not escaped during floods, entered local waterways, and then absolutely dominated every other creature.
At the time, they were seen as a green alternative to chemicals. Ecologist Kevin Irons is at the center of a long-gestating campaign to give the fish a reputational makeover thorough enough to whet American appetites.Ĭopi has been in waterways in parts of the southern United States since the 1970s, when environmentally-minded aquaculturists imported them to clean catfish retainer ponds.
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