Calculations!
a numerical Adventure in four steps
My sample of 25 people cannot by any means be taken to represent the opinions of the entire American people, nor can a Slideshare be seen as the precise equivalent of a TV commercial campaign. However, the following calculations estimate how much carp would be consumed if my sample turned out to give an accurate suggestion.
Step One: Estimate Average Individual Consumption
In my survey question, I asked people to compare their willingness to buy Asian carp to their willingness to buy tilapia and catfish. According to national data (Oregon State University et. al.), tilapia and catfish are the fourth and sixth most popular seafood items in the U.S., the average person consuming 1.45 pounds of the former and 0.8 pounds of the latter annually.
44 percent of the respondents to my survey said they were just as willing to buy Asian carp as the two other species, and 32% were more willing to buy it than either one. Therefore, it would not be entirely implausible to suggest that Asian carp, if advertised and made readily available, could sell more than the two combined, say, 2.5 pounds per person per year. However, we will err on the side of caution, and say that the 32% who favored carp are roughly cancelled out by the 24% who were either reluctant or entirely unwilling to try, and take the remaining indifferent people as likely to buy the same amount of carp as they do the two other species (not combined, but separately). We will even place them closer to the less popular catfish, and conclude:
Estimate for Average Individual Consumption: 1 pound per year.
Step Two: Multiply by U.S. Population
This is the easy step. The current U.S. population is estimated at about 316 million, but in the interest of conservatism and mathematical simplicity, we will round down to 300 million. Thus, we multiply 300 million by one, and get:
Total U.S. Consumption: 300 million pounds per year.
Step Three: Convert Meat Amount to Live Fish Amount
Not all of a fish is edible; in most cases, only the fillets are actually consumed. Venugopal's Seafood Processing estimates that carp fillets with skin compose 41-49 percent of the weight of the original fish (Venugopal, 352). He does not specify the species of carp, but he only shortly before mentioned the bighead carp among species of commercial importance (341), so it seems likely that he has them included in his 41-49 percent range. We will continue to err on the side of caution, and round the fillet yield up to 50 percent. Thus, twice as much weight in unprocessed carp would be captured as was actually eaten. Therefore, multiplying 300 million by two, we get:
Unprocessed Carp Captured: 600 million pounds per year.
Step Four: Calculate Effect on Carp Populations
There are no comprehensive estimates of the total amount of Asian carp in the United States. However, an estimate for the Illinois River, one of the larger water bodies carp have invaded and probably the one to get the most publicity and study, does exist. "The biomass of Asian carp produced annually in the Illinois river likely far exceed 3.1 million pounds," says a report, "perhaps reaching 10 million pounds per year" (Garvey, 2-3). As always, we will be conservative, and accept their higher estimate.
It is difficult to say what percentage of the total Asian carp population is contained in the Illinois River. However, the way that every second article written about Asian carp focuses on the Illinois river certainly makes it seem significant. True, it gets a lot of attention because it is a potential corridor into the Great Lakes. Still, a good part of the attention also seems to come from the remarkable abundance of carp in the river. I think it would be absurd to suggest that the Illinois contained any less than one percent of America's Asian carp.
Let's say, then, that the Illinois River produces ten million pounds of Asian carp annually, which are only one percent of fully a billion pounds of Asian carp produced annually. Even if such were the case, 600 million pounds of commercially captured carp would mean the majority of that year's carp being removed. Less carp to reproduce would result in far lower numbers of carp the next year, meaning the capture of the same amount of carp would nullify an even larger percentage of that year's yield. You see where this is going. Carp would be reduced until their populations got too sparse to be worth catching.
Result for Carp Population: Decimation.
This site was created by Joey Benevento in Emory University's Domain of One's Own Program as part of an English 212W class with Professor Marc Bousquet.
Step One: Estimate Average Individual Consumption
In my survey question, I asked people to compare their willingness to buy Asian carp to their willingness to buy tilapia and catfish. According to national data (Oregon State University et. al.), tilapia and catfish are the fourth and sixth most popular seafood items in the U.S., the average person consuming 1.45 pounds of the former and 0.8 pounds of the latter annually.
44 percent of the respondents to my survey said they were just as willing to buy Asian carp as the two other species, and 32% were more willing to buy it than either one. Therefore, it would not be entirely implausible to suggest that Asian carp, if advertised and made readily available, could sell more than the two combined, say, 2.5 pounds per person per year. However, we will err on the side of caution, and say that the 32% who favored carp are roughly cancelled out by the 24% who were either reluctant or entirely unwilling to try, and take the remaining indifferent people as likely to buy the same amount of carp as they do the two other species (not combined, but separately). We will even place them closer to the less popular catfish, and conclude:
Estimate for Average Individual Consumption: 1 pound per year.
Step Two: Multiply by U.S. Population
This is the easy step. The current U.S. population is estimated at about 316 million, but in the interest of conservatism and mathematical simplicity, we will round down to 300 million. Thus, we multiply 300 million by one, and get:
Total U.S. Consumption: 300 million pounds per year.
Step Three: Convert Meat Amount to Live Fish Amount
Not all of a fish is edible; in most cases, only the fillets are actually consumed. Venugopal's Seafood Processing estimates that carp fillets with skin compose 41-49 percent of the weight of the original fish (Venugopal, 352). He does not specify the species of carp, but he only shortly before mentioned the bighead carp among species of commercial importance (341), so it seems likely that he has them included in his 41-49 percent range. We will continue to err on the side of caution, and round the fillet yield up to 50 percent. Thus, twice as much weight in unprocessed carp would be captured as was actually eaten. Therefore, multiplying 300 million by two, we get:
Unprocessed Carp Captured: 600 million pounds per year.
Step Four: Calculate Effect on Carp Populations
There are no comprehensive estimates of the total amount of Asian carp in the United States. However, an estimate for the Illinois River, one of the larger water bodies carp have invaded and probably the one to get the most publicity and study, does exist. "The biomass of Asian carp produced annually in the Illinois river likely far exceed 3.1 million pounds," says a report, "perhaps reaching 10 million pounds per year" (Garvey, 2-3). As always, we will be conservative, and accept their higher estimate.
It is difficult to say what percentage of the total Asian carp population is contained in the Illinois River. However, the way that every second article written about Asian carp focuses on the Illinois river certainly makes it seem significant. True, it gets a lot of attention because it is a potential corridor into the Great Lakes. Still, a good part of the attention also seems to come from the remarkable abundance of carp in the river. I think it would be absurd to suggest that the Illinois contained any less than one percent of America's Asian carp.
Let's say, then, that the Illinois River produces ten million pounds of Asian carp annually, which are only one percent of fully a billion pounds of Asian carp produced annually. Even if such were the case, 600 million pounds of commercially captured carp would mean the majority of that year's carp being removed. Less carp to reproduce would result in far lower numbers of carp the next year, meaning the capture of the same amount of carp would nullify an even larger percentage of that year's yield. You see where this is going. Carp would be reduced until their populations got too sparse to be worth catching.
Result for Carp Population: Decimation.
This site was created by Joey Benevento in Emory University's Domain of One's Own Program as part of an English 212W class with Professor Marc Bousquet.