Basa fish: Information from Answers.com

Basa fish

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Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Actinopterygii
Order:	Siluriformes
Family:	Pangasiidae
Genus:	Pangasius
Species:	P. bocourti

Binomial name

Pangasius bocourti
Sauvage, 1880

The basa fish, Pangasius bocourti, is a type of catfish in the family Pangasiidae. Basa are native to the Mekong River Delta in Vietnam and Chao Phraya basin in Thailand.^[1] These fish are important food fish with an international market. They are often labeled in the North America as basa fish or bocourti.^[2]In the UK, the species is known mainly as Vietnamese river cobbler^[3], with basa also being used on occasion. In Europe, these fish are commonly marketed as pangassius or panga.^[4] Other related shark catfish may occasionally be falsely labeled as basa fish, these fish include Pangasius hypophthalmus (iridescent shark) and Pangasius pangasius (yellowtail catfish).

1 Body
2 Food and Spawning
3 "Catfish War" in the U.S.
4 Mascot
5 Basa in the UK
6 References
7 External links

Body

The body of a basa fish is stout and heavy. The rounded head is broader than it is long, the blunt snout having a white band on its muzzle.

Food and Spawning

Basa fish feed on plants. These fish spawn at the onset of the rainy season.^[1]

"Catfish War" in the U.S.

In 2002, the United States accused Vietnam of dumping catfish, namely Pangasius bocourti and Pangasius hypophthalmus, on the American market, charging the Vietnamese importers who are subsidized by Vietnam's government of unfair competition.^[5]^[6] With pressures from the U.S. catfish industry, the United States Congress passed a law in 2003 preventing the imported fish from being labelled as catfish, as well as imposing additional tariffs on the imported fish.^[7] Under the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ruling, only species from the family Ictaluridae can be sold as true catfish.^[8] As a result, the Vietnamese exporters of this fish now label their products sold in the U.S. as basa fish or bocourti.^[9]^[10]

At the height of the "catfish war," U.S. catfish farmers and others were describing the imported catfish as an inferior product. However, researchers at the Mississippi State University show that in their experiment, imported basa were preferred in a taste test 3-to-1.^[11]

Mascot

P. bocourti, known in Thai as pla mong, is the mascot of Nakhon Phanom Games, a regional multi-sport event in central Thailand in October 2006.^[12]

Basa in the UK

Basa has become fairly common in the UK under the name Vietnamese river cobbler, mainly being sold through the large supermarkets in both fresh and frozen forms. It is marketed as a cheaper alternative to traditionally popular white fish, such as cod or haddock. Young's Bluecrest use it in some of their frozen fish products, choosing to use the name basa instead of cobbler.

It has also been suggested by UK Trading Standards officers that cobbler is being fraudulently sold as cod by some fish and chip retailers in order to capitalise on the large difference in the wholesale price between the two, with cobbler being less than half the price of cod. This practice was highlighted by the successful prosecution of one retailer in July 2009.^[13]