Although the impact of snakeheads on the environment is still being studied, they are one part of the larger problem of "invasives" muscling in on native species, hogging resources and decimating land, seas and crops to the tune of over $120 billion a year. Invasives can touch down on American land and waters by various means, ranging from stowing away in ship ballast water to being released into the wild by humans who have cultivated them as ornamental plants or kept them as pets. While non-native species have existed as long as humans have roamed the earth and probably even longer, globalization has accelerated both their spread and the damage they cause.

Like Murphy, many environmental organizations have embraced the idea of promoting the consumption of these invaders--from rogue seaweed to bristly, 200-pound feral hogs--as a way to raise public consciousness and get people involved in combatting a severe threat to biodiversity. "Conservation can get so serious and dire, we want to put a little fun back in," says Laura Huffman, state director of the Texas Nature Conservancy.

Most invasives won't be eradicted through human consumption alone, but Huffman and other environmentalists are okay with that. "What's important," she says, "is that we re-popularize and infuse some joy into the conversation over protection of resources."

But that begs the question: Do invasives taste good enough to earn a permanent spot on home and restaurant menus?

More and more people are trying hard to prove they do. The Corvallis, Oregon-based Institute for Applied Ecology's (IAE) Eradication by Mastication program includes an annual invasive species cook-off and a published cookbook called The Joy of Cooking Invasives: A Culinary Guide to Biocontrol (kudzu quiche! nutria eggrolls!). The program will hold a workshop this summer on how to dig, process, and cook up the highly invasive purple varnish clam. Tom Kaye, executive director of IAE, made one of three prize-winning entries at last year's cook-off: battered, deep-fried Cajun bullfrog legs. Second place went to popcorn English house sparrow drumsticks. Despite their poor labor-to-meat ratio, Kaye says, "they were tasty." Third prize went to nutria prepared three ways, including pulled-pork style and made into sausages.

To celebrate Earth Day this year, the Texas Nature Conservancy held a "Malicious but Delicious," dinner, where Austin chefs Ned and Jodi Elliott classed up a bunch of invasives for a four-course menu of popovers with a salpicon of tiger prawns, bastard cabbage orecchiette, porchetta of feral hog, and lime and Himalayan blackberry tart. Huffman says there are now 1.5 million feral hogs rototilling the arid Texas soil and eating everything in sight. Producing at least three litters a year for a total of 12 to 13 hoglets, she says, "they're prolific, they're smart, and hard to eradicate because they catch on to our tricks." Diners' response was enthusiastic, reports Elliott, who discovered that bastard cabbage, a federally designated "noxious weed" commonly seen along roadsides in Texas, has a delicious "earthy, almost parsley-like flavor."