Snakeheads Eat their Way to New York

By BILL STRAUB - Scripps Howard News Service

It's been featured in a horror movie - carrying the tagline "Welcome to the bottom of the food chain" - and some consider it a delicacy when delivered on a plate at an Asian restaurant.

But in places where it has taken up residence, the snakehead, a forever-hungry critter that tends to devour most everything in its path, is considered one of the least desirable aquatic guests imaginable.

New York is the latest state to fall victim to the snakehead with researchers pulling four from Meadow Lake in Flushing, not too far from Shea Stadium, last month. Ten other states, from Maine to California, have reported infestations. Snakeheads, which come in a variety of species, have been captured in the Delaware and Potomac Rivers. Florida has given up trying to deal with them in some areas.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton has described the snakehead, also known as the frankenfish, as "like something from a bad horror movie." (In fact, such a film was released in 2004) The snakehead is a non-native, air-breathing freshwater fish, long and cylindrical with a large mouth, protruding lower jaw and canine-like teeth. It makes lunch out of whatever other fish happen to be in the neighborhood.

And that neighborhood isn't confined to a single waterway. Since the snakehead is an air breather, some species can leave one pond after making mincemeat of its brethren and motivate across land to other aquatic spots where the fish therein will meet a similar fate.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service describes snakeheads as "voracious predators, feeding upon other fishes, crustaceans, frogs, smaller reptiles and sometimes birds and mammals.

"If snakeheads become established in North American ecosystems, their predatory behavior could drastically modify the array of native species," the service warns.

Snakeheads are native to Asia, Malaysia, Indonesia and tropical Africa - not the United States. It is the most recent and drastic example of invasive species.

Most snakeheads arrived in the United States before October 2002 when they were added to the list of injurious wildlife under the Lacy Act, which bans importation and interstate transportation without a permit. Before that, snakeheads were brought in and sold in pet stores and live food fish markets in places like Boston, New York and St. Louis. The Fish and Wildlife Service reports that 16,554 live snakeheads were imported into the United States between 1997 and 2000 and could be bought over the Internet.

"Several species of snakeheads are highly valued as food within parts of their native range while several species are sought by hobbyists through aquarium trade," said Michael Fraser of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. "The northern Snakehead in particular is a popular food fish and is cultured in China and Korea. This species has been imported to other nations, including Canada and the U.S., where it has been sold alive in certain ethnic markets and restaurants."

The Fish and Wildlife Service deduced that some pet owners and restaurateurs decided to rid themselves of their possessions by dumping them in nearby waters, hence the infestation.

Snakeheads are only one of hundreds of invasive species - plants, animals and fish - that a Cornell University study maintains is costing the economy $137 billion a year. The group runs the gamut from kudzu - a vine from Japan that can grow as much as a foot a day and now covers much of the Southeastern U.S. - to nutria, a semi-aquatic rodent from South America that has caused considerable damage to Louisiana's coastal wetlands because of its feeding habits.

The Nature Conservancy, a group dedicated to preserving native species, also is working to keep invasive species out, fearing potential harm to the ecosystem.

The conservancy cites an incident that occurred in the late 1980s. A transoceanic tanker, having visited the Caspian Sea in Asia, unwittingly dumped its ballast water somewhere in the Great Lakes, releasing some zebra mussels with it. Now the tiny mussels, which have been found as far east as Massachusetts, threaten to smother more than a hundred native mussel species. Dams and power plants are facing expenses that could reach into the billions of dollars repairing damage, such as clogged pipes, caused by the zebra mussel.

And then there's the Asian longhorned beetle, first discovered in 1996, that escaped from packing crates delivered from China. Their presence in parts of Chicago, New York and New Jersey have led to the destruction of more than 8,000 street and yard trees. The beetle attacks maples and other hardwood species, threatening the timber, maple syrup, nursery, and fall foliage tourism industries across the Northeast.

The Nature Conservancy notes that the United States has a long history of dealing with invasive species, with the snakehead being just one of the most recent and violent examples. In the 1930s, the American elm tree lined city sidewalks until the introduction of Dutch elm disease, a fungus brought in with a shipment of unpeeled raw veneer logs from Europe. The chestnut blight, which killed entire forests in the early years of the 20th century, is thought to have been caused by its introduction from Japan.

(Contact Bill Straub at StraubB(at)shns.com)