By Whitney Pipkin, Bay JournalThe northern snakehead was already starring in horror films like "Frankenfish" and "Snakehead Terror" by the time it showed up in the Potomac River in 2004.
They didn't have to be blockbusters to send the message: This fish is to be feared. A native of China, the Channa argus had been snagging national headlines about the havoc it would wreak since it was first discovered in a Crofton, MD, pond in 2002. It could eat everything around and then walk overland to another water body to do it again. Or so the rap went.
Since then, snakeheads have proliferated and spread like wildfire, as many had feared. But, along the way, their fearsome reputation has softened some, at least among recreational anglers who've found they're fun to catch and not bad tasting either.
"It was set up to be the poster child for all invasives, because it had this fierce name and teeth," said John Odenkirk, fisheries biologist with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. "Many of us never subscribed to the initial hysteria, but we've been battling it ever since."
Despite Maryland's draining the pond where snakeheads were first found, the fish showed up in the Potomac and has since become firmly established in more than 60 miles of the waterway. It has also spread to ponds, reservoirs and other rivers. The U.S. Geological Survey lists snakeheads as "established" in the creeks around Baltimore, the Rhode River south of Annapolis and the Wicomico River near Salisbury. They've made it all the way up the Bay to the lower Susquehanna River and south to the Rappahannock River.
In response to that first snakehead sighting in the Potomac, anglers were exhorted to catch and kill as many as they could, lest the fish consume or outcompete their beloved bass and other keystone species. But, more than a decade later and despite its rampant spread, fears about the fish's environmental impact have yet to materialize.
Its numbers, rather, appear to have plateaued, Odenkirk said, and the snakehead's presence has had little discernible impact on the rest of the food chain — so far.
"While I've been saying for years and continue to say is that there doesn't seem to be an ecological impact yet, I always make sure that I put that 'yet' in there because we're dealing with an invasive that has only been here about 10 years," said Daniel Ryan, fisheries research branch chief for the District Department of Energy & Environment.
Read the rest of this story in Bay Journal here.
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