This Labor Day, Honolulu residents had a delicious time building community and protecting their local ecosystem by chowing down on an invasive species seen recently in Hawaiʻi's reefs: ta'ape, also known as the common bluestripe snapper.
An ad for the fish fry, hosted by Hawaiʻi-sourced fish company Local I'a, was published in Honolulu Magazine. This was the second fish fry hosted by the company, after the first one sold out in only 1.5 hours.
Owner Ashley Watts is already seeing a difference when snorkeling over the reefs off the Big Island; there are fewer of the invasive fish to be seen.
"It's getting better," she said, per Honolulu Magazine. "Increased awareness of the deliciousness and availability and affordability and the likeness to other snappers has encouraged people to start eating them, and therefore fishers to start fishing for them."
To help in that effort, on Sept. 1, Watts and her company offered $12 plates featuring rice, salad, and one or two fried ta'ape. They also offered prepared, vacuum-sealed fish to cook fresh at home.
It's a smart way to deal with invasive species, which have no natural predators in the areas that they invade. Normally, these species overrun the new area, outcompeting the native life, but if humans start exploiting them for food, people can help cull the population and get control of the situation. Many invasive species are edible — indeed, that's often why they are introduced to new areas in the first place — so having the public and even professional chefs cook them is a smart move.
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In this case, Watts hopes that ta'ape takes off as a food source.
"The cool thing about ta'ape is that it's year-round, and a lot of our other snapper species are not. They're all over the reefs," she said, per Honolulu Magazine. "Where I come from in the South, we have a lot of fish fries. It's a way for people to come together, eat food, and build community, so that's what we're going for. And people will find out why we want to eat ta'ape."
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