Relationships Among Cultured and Naturally Occurring Populations of Freshwater Catfish in the United States R. Oneal Smitherman and Rex A. Dunham Department of Fisheries and Allied Aquacultures
Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station
Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama 36849 ABSTRACT Commercial production and processing of cultured catfish in the United States was begun in the 1950s in Alabama, and in 1960 the entire industry consisted of only 182 ha of farm ponds and production of 272,727 kg of catfish. In 1992, fish farms, mainly in Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and Louisiana, produced 228,683,500 kg of catfish for processing. Catfish presently accounts for more than half of all U.S. aquaculture yield. During the period 1960-1992, commercial catch of catfish from natural waters declined from 17,456,363 to 4,931,818 kg. This trend was attributed to consumer concerns about safety of fish products from public waters and increasingly competitive marketing and pricing by the farm-raised catfish industry. Catfish are mainly produced in ponds; some state and federal agencies stock hatchery-reared fish in public waters. Cultured catfish are sometimes lost during flooding from aquaculture facilities to natural waters, where genetic influences and competitive interactions might impact indigenous populations of catfish. However, these influences and interactions have not been evaluated. More significant influences are those manifested when mature catfish are captured from the wild and added to broodstock populations on farms. Through natural selection and genetic drift, gene frequencies are significantly altered when the wild fish are reproduced and grown in farm ponds under intensive management. | |
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