Maryland Schoolkids Help Fight 'Little Bay Monster' One Lunch at a Time

One of the Chesapeake Bay’s biggest threats is now on the school lunch menu.

“It’s yummy,” one second-grader told NPR of the “catty patty,” a blue catfish cake served on a bun.

“It tastes like the future,” another student told WBOC. “And when I eat it, I go to Heaven.”

About eight years ago, Maryland officials asked Beth Brewster, supervisor of food services for Caroline County Public Schools, for help with a problem. Blue catfish, brought to Virginia rivers in the 1970s for recreational fishing, were taking over the bay. Officials had assumed the bay’s brackish water would keep the freshwater fish contained. But record rainfall in 2018 gave them enough fresh water to spread.

With no real predators besides people, the fish prey heavily on native species, including the blue crabs that many local economies rely on. In some spots, blue catfish now make up about 70% of all fish by weight, according to Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources.

“It truly does eat everything,” Brewster told People magazine. “It grows to 100 pounds. It lives 20 years. So it is definitely a little bay monster.”

Brewster’s chefs developed the fish cake, which launched in 2024. Caroline County now serves blue catfish every other week. Other districts in Maryland and Virginia have also added it to their menus through the program Bay2Tray.

Local economies benefit, too. “What I started off as just something to do to fill in, in between other seasons, actually has turned into my primary job now,” commercial fisherman Rocky Rice told NPR.

Experts say school cafeterias alone won't solve the problem. Brewster and Jenn Lovewell of Real Good Fish also say millions of pounds must be harvested just to keep the catfish population from growing.

“It’ll never be eradicated,” Brewster said.

Lovewell’s advice? “Eat the problem and save the bay,” she told NPR.

Reflect: What’s a food you were unsure about at first but ended up liking, and what changed your mind?