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| NAS - Nonindigenous Aquatic Species |
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Common Name: channel catfish
Taxonomy: available through 
Identification: Becker (1983); Page and Burr (1991); Etnier and Starnes (1993); Jenkins and Burkhead (1994).
Size: Maximum size: 127 cm.
Native Range:
St. Lawrence-Great Lakes, Hudson Bay (Red River drainage), and Missouri-Mississippi River basins from southern Quebec to southern Manitoba and Montana south to Gulf. Possibly also native on Atlantic and Gulf Slopes from Susquehanna River to Neuse River, and from Savannah River to Lake Okeechobee, Florida, and west to northern Mexico and eastern New Mexico (Page and Burr 1991).
Nonindigenous Occurrences: The channel catfish has been extensively introduced into states including Arkansas (Pritchard et al. 1978; Robison and Buchanan 1988); the Colorado, Gila, Bill Williams, Little Colorado, and Rio Magdalena drainages in Arizona (Minckley 1973; Tyus et al. 1982); Lake Cuyamaca in San Diego County, California, in 1891 (Smith 1896), and widely stocked since then throughout the state (Shebley 1917; Lampman 1946; Moyle 1976a; Moyle and Daniels 1982; Dill and Cordone 1997); the Colorado, Green, San Juan, Yampa, White, Republican and Rio Grande drainages in Colorado (Vanicek et al. 1970; Everhart and Seaman 1971; Holden and Stalnaker 1975; Tyus et al. 1982; Walker 1993; Tyus 1998); the Connecticut and Housatonic rivers, Connecticut (Behnke and Wetzel 1960; Whitworth et al. 1968; Schmidt 1986; Whitworth 1996); the Delaware and Nanticoke rivers in Delaware (Lee et al. 1976, 1981; Schmidt 1986; Raasch and Altemus 1991); the Altamaha, Ocmulgee, Oconee, Satilla, Ogeechee, Savannah, and St. Mary's rivers in Georgia (Dahlberg and Scott 1971a, 1971b); the islands of Hawaii, Kaui, Maui, and Oahu, Hawaii (Brock 1960; Maciolek 1984); the Boise River, Idaho, in 1893 and later the Snake and Little Wood rivers (Linder 1963; Simpson and Wallace 1978); non-specific areas of Iowa (Harlan et al. 1987); non-specific areas in Kansas (Cross 1967; Cross and Collins 1995); throughout Maryland (Lee et al. 1976, 1981); the Connecticut, Merrimack, Chicopee, Manhan, Quaboag, Agawam and Charles rivers, five ponds in Hampden County, and Silver Lake in Essex County, Massachusetts (Lee et al. 1980 et seq.; Schmidt 1986; Hartel 1992; Cardoza et al. 1993; Hartel et al. 1996); southwestern Minnesota (Phillips et al. 1982); Lake Mead, Pyramid Lake, the lower Humboldt River, and Lahontan Reservoir in Nevada (La Rivers 1962; Deacon and Williams 1984); many areas of New Jersey, including Greenwood Lake and Lake Hopatcong (Morse 1905; Fowler 1906, 1952; Stiles 1978; R. Soldwedel, personal communication); the Mimbres, Rio Grande, Pecos, San Juan, Little Colorado, San Francisco,San Juan, and Gila drainages in New Mexico (Koster 1957; Tyus et al. 1982; Sublette et al. 1990; Platania 1991; Springer 2005); the Susquehanna drainage in New York (T. Sinnott, personal communication); the Broad, Catawba, Yadkin, Neuse, Tar, Roanoke, Chowan, Cape Fear, and Northeast Cape Fear drainages in North Carolina (Hocutt et al. 1986; Menhinick 1991); Indian Lake, Ohio (Trautman 1981); the Columbia, Willamette, Umpqua, and Walla Walla rivers, Oregon (Smith 1896; Lampman 1946; Bond 1973; Wydoski and Whitney 1979; Bond 1994); the Susquehanna drainage, Pennsylvania (Bean 1892b; Cooper 1983 (for locations); Hocutt et al. 1986); the Pee Dee, Santee-Cooper, Edisto, Combahee, Broad, and Savannah rivers in South Carolina (Dahlberg and Scott 1971b; Loyacano 1975; Hocutt et al. 1986); Sanctuary Pond in Pflugerville, ponds and reservoirs in Texas (Knapp 1953; Howells and Prentice 1991); Utah Lake and the Green, Colorado, Bear, Jordan, San Juan, Price, San Rafael, Duchesne, and Sevier rivers, Utah (Sigler and Miller 1963; Vanicek et al. 1970; Tyus et al. 1982; Sigler and Sigler 1987); the Potomac, Rappahannock, York, James, Chowan and Roanoke drainages in Virginia (Hocutt et al. 1986; Jenkins and Burkhead 1994); the Columbia River and Lake Washington, Washington (Smith 1896; Lampman 1946; Gray and Dauble 1977; Wydoski and Whitney 1979); the Potomac River, West Virginia (Stauffer et al. 1995); the Rock River, Waukesha County lakes, Lake Helen in Portage County, and several rivers in the Manitowoc Sheboygan watershed, Wisconsin (Becker 1983); and the North Platte and Bighorn drainages, the Little Snake Connor River, and Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Wyoming (Baxter and Simon 1970; Hubert 1994).
Means of Introduction: Intentionally stocked for sport fishing and food. The first introductions in the Colorado River took place in 1892-1893 or in 1906 (Miller and Alcorn 1946). They had become established throughout the Colorado basin by the early 1900s (Holden and Stalnaker 1975). The earliest stocking record for the Yampa River is from 1944 and involved 34,200 fingerling catfish (Tyus 1998). The introductions into Silver Lake and the Charles River in Massachusetts involved albino fish from the aquarium trade (Cardoza et al. 1993).
Status: Established in most waters where introduced.
Impact of Introduction: The channel catfish hybridizes with the threatened Yaqui catfish I. pricei in Mexico (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 1994b). Colorado squawfish Ptychocheilus lucius, an endangered species, have been documented to choke on introduced channel catfish when attempting to eat them (McAda 1983; Pimental et al. 1985; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 1990b). Jenkins and Burkhead (1994) speculated that introduced channel catfish may have contributed to the demise of an isolated population of trout-perch Percopsis omiscomaycus in the Potomac River in Virginia and Maryland. Introduced channel catfish may exert a major negative effect on populations of various endangered species. For instance, this species is known to prey on small and large endangered humpback chub Gila cypha in the Little Colorado River thereby limiting recruitment and also increasing adult mortality (Marsh and Douglas 1997). There is also evidence that this introduced catfish preys heavily on juveniles of razorback sucker Xyrauchen texanus that had been reintroduced into the Gila River of Arizona (Marsh and Brooks 1989). Introduced predatory fishes, including the channel catfish, may be partially responsible for the decline of the Chiricahua leopard frog Rana chiricahuensis in southeastern Arizona (Rosen et al. 1995).
Remarks: Tyus et al. (1982) gave a distribution map for this species in the upper Colorado basin. Channel catfish have also been stocked in many native areas including Arkansas (Robison and Buchanan 1988); Illinois (Burr, personal communication); Nebraska (Jones 1963). Harlan et al. (1987) stated that stocking in Iowa has widened this species' distribution. Cross and Collins (1995) mapped the species in every county in Kansas. Cross (1967) indicated a much more restricted distribution in the state and did not include every county. Presumably the more recent map indicates the species had been introduced to new locations since the 1967 publication. Cross (1967) also stated that it had been stocked in many lakes and ponds in the state.
Becker, G. C. 1983. Fishes of Wisconsin. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI.
Burr, B. - Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, IL. 1995.
Cross, F. B. 1967. Handbook of Fishes of Kansas. State Biological Survey and University of Kansas Museum of Natural History, Miscellaneous Publication 45, Topeka, KS.
Dahlberg, M. D., and D. C. Scott. 1971a. The freshwater fishes of Georgia. Bulletin of the Georgia Academy of Science 29:1--64.
Dahlberg, M. D., and D. C. Scott. 1971b. Introductions of freshwater fishes in Georgia. Bulletin of the Georgia Academy of Science 29:245--252.
Deacon, J. E., and J. E. Williams. 1984. Annotated list of the fishes of Nevada. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 97(1):103--118.
Etnier, D. A., and W. C. Starnes. 1993. The fishes of Tennessee. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, TN.
Everhart, W. H., and W. R. Seaman. 1971. Fishes of Colorado. Colorado Game, Fish and Parks Division, Denver, CO. 75 pp.
Fowler, H. W. 1906. The fishes of New Jersey. Pages 35--477 in Annual Report of the New Jersey State Museum (1905), part II. MacCrellish and Quigley, State Province, Trenton, NJ.
Fowler, H. W. 1952. A list of the fishes of New Jersey, with off-shore species. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia CIV:89--151.
Harlan, J. R., E. B. Speaker, and J. Mayhew. 1987. Iowa fish and fishing. Iowa Department of Natural Resources, Des Moines, IA. 323 pp.
Hartel, K. E. 1992. Non-native fishes known from Massachusetts freshwaters. Occasional Reports of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Fish Department, Cambridge, MA. 2. September. pp. 1--9.
Holden, P. B., and C. B. Stalnaker. 1975. Distribution and abundance of mainstream fishes of the middle and upper Colorado River basins, 1967--1973. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 104(2):217--231.
Howells, R. G., and J. A. Prentice. 1991. Performance of Florida largemouth bass from Cuba in Texas waters. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Management Data Series 59, Austin, TX. 13 pp.
Hubert, W. 1994. Exotic fish. Pages 158--174 in T. L. Parrish, and S. H. Anderson, editors. Exotic species manual. Wyoming Game and Fish Department, Laramie, WY.
Jenkins, R. E., and N. M. Burkhead. 1994. Freshwater fishes of Virginia. American Fisheries Society, Bethesda, MD.
Koster, W. J. 1957. Guide to the fishes of New Mexico. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, NM.
Kraai, J. E., W. P. Provine, and J. A. Prentice. 1983. Case histories of three walleye stocking techniques with cost-to-benefit considerations. Proceedings of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies 37(1983):395--400.
Lampman, B. H. 1946. The coming of the pond fishes. Binfords and Mort, Portland, OR.
La Rivers, I. 1962. Fishes and fisheries of Nevada. Nevada State Print Office, Carson City, NV.
Lee, D. S., C. R. Gilbert, C. H. Hocutt, R. E. Jenkins, D. E. McAllister, and J. R. Stauffer, Jr. 1980 et seq. Atlas of North American freshwater fishes. North Carolina State Museum of Natural History, Raleigh, NC.
Lee, D. S., A. Norden, C. R. Gilbert, and R. Franz. 1976. A list of the freshwater fishes of Maryland and Delaware. Chesapeake Science 17(3):205--211.
Linder, A. D. 1963. Idaho's alien fishes. Tebiwa 6(2):12--15.
Luebke, R. W. 1978. Evaluation of a multi-predator introduction. Federal Aid Project F-31-R-4.
Maciolek, J. A. 1984. Exotic fishes in Hawaii and other islands of Oceania. Pages 131--161 in W. R. Courtenay, Jr., and J. R. Stauffer, Jr., editors. Distribution, biology, and management of exotic fishes. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD.
Marsh, P. C., and M. E. Douglas. 1997. Predation by introduced fishes on endangered humpback chub and other native species in the Little Colorado RIver, Arizona. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 126:343-346.
McAda, C. W. 1983. Colorado squawfish, Ptychocheilus lucius (Cyprinidae), with a channel catfish, Ictalurus punctatus (Ictaluridae), lodged in its throat. Southwestern Naturalist 28(1):119--120.
Menhinick, E. F. 1991. The freshwater fishes of North Carolina. North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. 227 pp.
Minckley, W. L. 1973. Fishes of Arizona. Arizona Fish and Game Department. Sims Printing Company, Inc., Phoenix, AZ.
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Moyle, P. B. 1976a. Inland fishes of California. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.
Moyle, P. B., and R. A. Daniels. 1982. Fishes of the Pit River System, McCloud River System, and Surprise Valley Region. University of California Publications, Zoology 115:1--82.
Page, L. M., and B. M. Burr. 1991. A field guide to freshwater fishes of North America north of Mexico. The Peterson Field Guide Series, volume 42. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, MA.
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Phillips, G. L., W. D. Schmid, J. C. Underhill. 1982. Fishes of the Minnesota region. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN.
Pimental, R., R. V. Bulkley, and H. H. Tyus. 1985. Choking of Colorado squawfish, Ptychocheilus lucius (Cyprinidae), on a channel catfish, Ictalurus punctatus (Ictaluridae), as a cause of mortality. Southwestern Naturalist 30:154--158.
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Pritchard, D. L., O. D. May, Jr., and L. Rider. 1976. Stocking of predators in the predator-stocking-evaluation reservoirs. Proceedings of the 30th annual conference of the Southeastern Association of Game and Fish Commissioners 30(1976):108--113.
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Shebley, W. H. 1917. History of the introduction of food and game fishes into the waters of California. California Fish and Game 3(1):3-10.
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Smith, H. M. 1896. A review of the history and results of the attempts to acclimatize fish and other water animals in the Pacific states. Bulletin of the U.S. Fish Commission for 1895, 40:379--472.
Springer, C. 2005. Catfish removal benefits San Juan River. ESPN Outdoors. Available online at URL http://espn.go.com/outdoors/conservation/s/2005/0202/1982675.html
Stauffer, J. R., Jr., J. M. Boltz, and L. R. White. 1995. The fishes of West Virginia. West Virginia Department of Natural Resources. Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA. 389 pp.
Stiles, E. W. 1978. Vertebrates of New Jersey. Edmund W. Stiles, Somerset, NJ.
Sublette, J. E., M. D. Hatch, and M. Sublette. 1990. The fishes of New Mexico. New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, NM. 393 pp.
Tilmant, J.T. 1999. Management of nonindigenous aquatic fish in the U.S. National Park System. National Park Service. 50 pp.
Trautman, M. B. 1981. The fishes of Ohio. Ohio State University Press, Columbus, OH.
Tyus, H. M., B. D. Burdick, R. A. Valdez, C. M. Haynes, T. A. Lytle, and C. R. Berry. 1982. Fishes of the upper Colorado River basin: distribution, abundance, and status. Pages 12--70 in W. H. Miller, H. M. Tyus, and C. A. Carlson, editors. Fishes of the upper Colorado River system: present and future, Western Division, American Fisheries Society.
Sakamoto, M. 2002. Deadly nymphs. Hawaii Fishing News. 25(5): 16-17.
Sommer, T, B. Harrell, M. Nobriga, R. Brown, P. Moyle, W. Kimmerer, and L. Schemel. 2001.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 1990b. Colorado squawfish recovery plan. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Denver, CO. 56 pp.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 1994b. Yaqui fishes recovery plan. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Albuquerque, NM. 48 pp.
Vinyard, G.L. 2001. Fish Species Recorded from
Waldrip, L. 1993a. 1992 fish stocking report. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. January 8, 1993. 1993: 9-12.
Waldrip, L. 1993b. Fish Stocking Report. Texas Parks and Wildlife News. March 5, 1993. 1993: 7-8.
Whitworth, W. R. 1996. Freshwater Fishes of Connecticut. State Geological and Natural History Survey of Connecticut, Bulletin 114.
Wydoski, R. S., and R. R. Whitney. 1979. Inland fishes of Washington. University of Washington Press, Seattle, WA.
Other Resources:
FishBase Fact Sheet
Author: Pam Fuller
Revision Date: 4/18/2006 Citation for this information:
Pam Fuller. 2009. Ictalurus punctatus. USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database, Gainesville, FL.
<http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/FactSheet.asp?speciesID=2341> Revision Date: 4/18/2006
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