Invasive species cause ecological and economic damage worldwide. Now some companies are seeing a commercial opportunity by using such non-native animals and plants as a valuable resource.
Caitlin Benn, marketing director for dog food company Wilder Harrier, says the company hopes one day to stop making one of its most popular products.
“It may sound strange to be actively selling a product that we hope will be discontinued,” says Ms. Benn. “But that’s part of our purpose … because we want to make a difference.”
“And that includes a product line whose main ingredient – all according to plan – is becoming increasingly scarce.”
Ms. Benn talks about the Canadian company’s Sustainable Fish dried dog food. It is made from an invasive species of fish called silver carp.
Native to China and eastern Siberia, the silver carp was introduced to US fish farms in the 1970s, then quickly escaped into the wild. Today the fish have spread widely along the Mississippi River and its tributaries and associated canals.
A voracious feeder of freshwater plankton, the silver carp’s presence has decimated native fish populations by crowding them out of this food source.
The great fear of both US and Canadian environmental agencies is that this invasive species will reach the Great Lakes. This could potentially lead to a collapse in commercial and recreational fisheries in the lakes and result in the fish migrating further into Canadian rivers.
Ontario, Canada’s Invasive Species Awareness Program does not mince words when it calls the silver carp and other invasive species, the bighead, “unwanted invaders” and “poses the greatest threat to Ontario’s waters.”
An important way to significantly reduce the number of silver carp is to catch the fish as a food source. But while silver carp are fine for human consumption and one taster described the fish as “pretty tasty,” getting people to actually buy the species seems difficult.
Luckily, dogs are far less picky, and so Wilder Harrier is doing its part to address the issue.
In 2020, the company launched its silver carp-based dog food, which used fish from waters in the US state of Illinois. To date, more than 10,000 2 kg and 5 kg bags are said to have been sold.
“We removed about 12,000 silver carp from American lakes and rivers, that’s 50 tons of fish,” says Ms. Benn.
The company’s dog food is now available online as well as in stores in Canada and the United States.
In the Caribbean, one of the most problematic invasive species is sargassum, a large alga that first arrived from the Atlantic in 2011.
When it accumulates on shores it can smother beaches, and when it decays it gives off a foul odor like rotten eggs. It suffocates native wildlife, and the toxic gases it releases — hydrogen sulfide and ammonia — can cause headaches, nausea and breathing difficulties in humans.
“We don’t have white beaches anymore,” says Pierre-Antoine Guibout, who moved to the Caribbean island of St. Barts eight years ago. “We have brown beaches. That’s not nice. It smells bad.”
In just over a decade, the amount of sargassum washing ashore in the Caribbean has tripled, with mounds up to three feet deep.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), this increase is due to rising water temperatures and the release of fertilizers into the sea.
The fishing industry is suffering from depletion and damaged equipment, and it’s terrible for tourism.
“We usually see Sargassum [on the shore] from March to July,” says Mr. Guibout. “But that period is getting longer and longer.”
The huge inflows were recognized as a natural disaster and many countries have declared national states of emergency.
But Mr. Guibout sees a resource. Realizing that algae are both strong and flexible, he saw their potential as a cardboard-like material.
In 2019, he launched an initiative called the “Sargasse Project” whose Sargassum carton is now being tested by laboratories in France before the project hits the commercial stage.
Mr Guibout hopes online retailers like Amazon and French company La Redoute will one day switch to the material used to make their delivery boxes.
“We don’t know how to eliminate such invasive species,” he says. “The only solution we have right now is to make something useful out of it.”
In South Korea, a company called Star’s Tech uses another invasive species – the Japanese starfish – as an ingredient in its eco-friendly deicer Eco-ST.
“Asterias amurensis – or Japanese starfish – is a predator that is causing massive damage to aquaculture,” says Dan Shin, director of sales at Star’s Tech. “They have high fertility and a large appetite.”
Star’s Tech removes an extract from the starfish’s skeletal structure, making the deicer less corrosive to concrete and metal.
The product was introduced to the South Korean market two years ago, and now Star’s Tech has its target overseas, hoping to gain a foothold in Canada, the United States, Europe and Japan.
More from the BBC series with an international perspective on trade.
According to the international conservation organization International Union for Conservation of Nature, the impact and control of invasive species now costs the global economy many billions of dollars a year. While no exact total is given, the impact of alien insects alone is worth more than US$70 billion (£56 billion) a year.
And Prof Helen Roy, an expert on the problem, says things are only going to get worse. “The problem is increasing regardless of the species, regardless of where in the world,” says the researcher from the UK Center for Ecology and Hydrology.
A 2020 study predicts that the number of alien species worldwide will increase by more than a third between 2005 and 2050. This increase is being fueled by more human movement around the world.
Back in Montreal, Caitlin Benn says Wilder Harrier is determined to do his part. “As far as other invasive species go, we have a long list that we are actively researching.
“Right now, we’re looking forward to wild boar the most.”
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