Copi

Now imagine if copi becomes the new tuna or tilapia or shrimp. Skyrocketing demand could encourage a surge in fishing, which in turn could help restore some semblance of ecological balance in rivers up and down the Mississippi watershed.

You’re in the mood for fish and your server suggests a dish of invasive carp. Ugh, you might say. But how about broiled copi, fresh from the Mississippi River?

That may as well be the new battle cry for Illinois fishery managers trying to rebrand four invasive species of Asian carp as copi.

It’s “copi,” short for “copious,” which the fish certainly are in Illinois’s waterways. Copi are actually four very different fish species native to China: grass, bighead, black, and silver carp.