Snakehead: A Fish Out of Water
by Eric Jay Dolin
One muggy day in May 2002, two men went fishing on a small and unremarkable pond in Crofton, Maryland, just a short drive from the nation's capital. One of them caught a fish that looked like nothing he'd ever seen. Before he threw it back, he snapped a few pictures and later shared them with state fisheries biologists. They too were puzzled, but after some sleuthing they identified the fish as a northern snakehead (Channa argus). A native of Asia, it didn't belong in the wild in Crofton, or anywhere in the United States for that matter. It was an alien with a primitive lung and sharp teeth, a potentially invasive species with a predilection for dining ravenously on other fishes, the ability to survive cold winters, and—most amazingly—the apparent ability to walk over land to another body of water whenever the mood struck it. Officials feared that snakeheads would establish themselves in Maryland and wreak havoc on the local ecosystem.
 |
This story is based on the book Snakehead:
A Fish Out of Water by Eric Jay Dolin, Ph.D.
To order, visit  www.sipress.si.edu. |
In late June and early July, more northern snakeheads were caught in the same pond. Their presence became a major event, covered internationally in newspapers and magazines, and on radio and television. With astonishing speed, the northern snakeheads, variously labeled "Frankenfish," "killer fish," "pit bulls with fins," "Chinese thug fish," "X-Files fish," and "fish from hell," became indisputable media superstars. Just as the summer of 2001 was called the summer of the shark, the summer of 2002 became the summer of the snakehead. But the snakeheads' days were numbered; come September they were gone, done in with poison administered by the state of Maryland.
When, in June 2002, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) determined that the mystery fish in the photo was a northern snakehead, the agency was concerned. Maryland has long been coping with harmful non-indigenous or invasive species. Nutria (Myocastor coypus), for example, a large rodent originally from South America, has been reproducing prolifically in the Chesapeake Bay for decades, displacing native muskrats and destroying thousands of acres of marshland vegetation. And Maryland's situation is indicative of a much larger problem. One recent study concluded that nationwide, invasive species cause environmental damages that add up to more that $100 billion annually. Some invasive species, such as kudzu (Pueraria montana var. lobata), zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha), and gypsy moth caterpillars (Lymantria dispar) have even become notoriously famous by virtue of their great destructiveness.
The DNR immediately began assessing the nature of the potential threat and how to address it. But before they got very far, the story took on a life of its own. On June 22, the Baltimore Sun ran an article by Candy Thomson titled "It Lurks in Crofton's Waters," which gave the public its first glimpse of the snakehead. "It sounds," said Thomson, "like a critter from a cheap science fiction movie, a companion for the Creature from the Black Lagoon. But this fish is real and it's living in a pond in Crofton." Readers were told that the northern snakehead came from China, was aggressive ("gobble[s] up every other fish in sight"), could breathe air, and "walk short distances on their extended fins."
On June 27, The Washington Post ran a piece by reporter Anita Huslin titled, "Freakish Fish Causes Fear in Md." Huslin labeled the snakehead "a nasty Frankenfish" and said it could live for days out of water and was "capable of clearing out a pond of all living creatures." A DNR biologist was quoted as saying, "this thing could hop from the pond, across the floodplain and into the [nearby Patuxent] river, and then all bets are off. It's the baddest bunny in the bush. It has no known predators in the environment, can grow to 15 pounds, and it can get up and walk. What more do you need?"
A problem with these early stories was that one of the things that made them so dramatic and compelling, the northern snakehead's ability to "walk" over land, turned out later to be incorrect. Only a few of the 28 different species of snakeheads can move over land, using a wiggling type motion, and the northern isn't one of them. Other items in these stories, while not necessarily incorrect, were unqualified, and as a result could leave the reader with the wrong impression about the northern snakehead. One was its ability to live for days out of water. Like any other fish, if a snakehead were taken out of the water on a hot sunny day, it would quickly dry out and die, regardless of its ability to gulp air. If, on the other hand, a snakehead out of water is kept wet, it can, according to many knowledgeable observers, live as an air breather for up to three days. Similarly, the northern snakehead's propensity to "gobble up every other fish in sight" was arguably too extreme. While northern snakeheads clearly could have a major negative effect on other fish in any body of water that they populate, it is highly unlikely that they would wipe out all the other fish. In both the former Soviet Republics and Japan, introduced northern snakeheads have been breeding and spreading for decades, and there are still plenty of native fish in evidence.
 |
| Northern snakehead. (Susan Trammell/USGS) |
The initial coverage of the snakehead discovery in Crofton caught the attention of many in the D.C. area and beyond. But what the story really needed to take off was an actual fish, as opposed to a snapshot of one. And that fish was provided by Joe Gillespie, a computer technician from Crofton, who caught a 26-inch northern snakehead on June 30. The capture of this fish unleashed a media tsunami. Local, regional, national, and international news outlets relayed the story under a dizzying array of shocking headlines, including, "Wanted Dead: Voracious Walking Fish" ("CBS Evening News") and "‘Frankenfish' in Maryland pond horrifies anglers and environmentalists" (The Kansas City Star).
Throughout the rest of July and early August, the story kept getting bigger. First, Gillespie caught a juvenile northern snakehead in the pond. Next, the DNR found the person responsible for introducing the snakeheads—a local man of Asian descent. He had purchased two live snakeheads from a New York fish market to make snakehead fish soup for his ailing sister, thinking the fish's supposed curative powers would help her get well. Before he could make the dish, his sister got better, and instead of eating the fish, the man ultimately dumped them in the pond, back in 2000. Then, state and federal wildlife officials netted 99 juvenile snakeheads in the pond. And on July 23, Gale Norton, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, announced that the federal government was proposing to ban the importation and interstate transportation of live snakeheads, and not just the northern snakehead, but all 28 species. "These fish are like something from a bad horror movie," Norton said. "We simply must do everything we can to prevent them from entering our waters, either accidentally or intentionally."
Stephanie Griffith, with the Agence France Presse, reported that "practically overnight the northern snakehead fish has come to be seen as one of the most dangerous interlopers to threaten any U.S. ecosystem.…If the babies elicit awe, adults spark full-blown terror." Jennifer Harper of the The Washington Times wondered, "So, does the fish have an agent yet? …Crofton, Maryland's, notorious northern snakehead fish has created a global splash, a veritable media feeding frenzy of camera crews, reporters, biologists, gawkers and—yes—anglers, who have besieged the four-acre Maryland pond…."
Satirists targeted the snakehead. Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" presented a hilarious skit, which offered a hierarchy of methods to eliminate the snakeheads, beginning with piranhas and going in sequence through scorpions, owls, African condors, and finally, napalm. On the "Late Show with David Letterman," the host ticked off the Top Ten Little Known Facts About the Snakehead Fish, with the number one being, "It's the result of a drunken genetic engineer and a dare."
Some news stories focused on the brighter side of the snakehead's curriculum vitae. An Associated Press article included an interview with the manager of the Khaiseng Trading and Fish Farm, in Singapore, which sells large quantities of snakeheads. The manager said, "we've been eating snakeheads for centuries. They're tasty and the flesh is so tender. …The best way to get rid of them is to just eat them."
As more facts came to light, an increasing number of articles took a more critical, second look at the snakehead story. One such article in Time quoted a fisheries biologists as saying, "this has been more Hollywood than Science," and Jeffrey Kluger, the author of the article, labeled the snakehead as "nothing more than a common swamp fish," whose form of "clumsy locomotion does not lend itself to wanderlust."
 |
| Kudzu is one of Maryland's other invasive species. Its vines can grow up to a foot per day. (Peggy Greb/USDA ARS) |
Dealing with the media was frustrating for the staff at the DNR. Eric Schwaab, the Director of DNR's Fisheries Service, said the story "was very quickly spinning into these fish were going to be walking into your yard type of thing. Our credibility dictated that we keep to the facts." The DNR's ability to provide accurate information, however, was often compromised by the lack of hard facts about northern snakeheads. "It was frustrating," said Steve Early, a fisheries biologist at the DNR, "not being able to have all the information. People were saying … you're the expert, what's the scoop?" When the DNR staff tried to provide more accurate and qualified information, they often felt they had limited success. "People would call me," said Heather Lynch from the DNR's office of public affairs, "and say ‘why don't you tell me about this Frankenfish?' and I'd say ‘actually it's not, it's called a snakehead fish.' ‘Why don't you talk to me about how it walks on land?' and I'd say ‘well it doesn't.' And they'd say, ‘oh, I know, I know,' but then you'd read their story and it would say that it did." In addition to dealing with the media, the DNR was moving forward with its plan to eradicate the snakeheads. The state-appointed Snakehead Fish Scientific Advisory Panel met on July 19 and recommended that the DNR use rotenone, a widely used piscicide, to kill all the fish in the pond. The panel also recommended that, before the use of rotenone, herbicides be applied to the pond to clear away the vegetation, a move that would likely improve the effectiveness of the poisoning.
Early on August 18, the DNR began the herbicide application. Editors at media outlets saw the event as a perfect news peg for generating another story in the ongoing snakehead saga, and sent a call out to their reporters: Be at the pond by dawn. And they were there, dozens of them, trooping down to the pond's edge, bleary-eyed, juggling notepads, pens, cameras, and sustenance from the nearby Dunkin' Donuts. Back and forth went the boats throughout the morning, spraying every square inch of the pond's surface. In the parking lot and strip mall adjacent to the pond, a large crowd of onlookers was gathered. If they got tired of watching the boats and the press corps, they could satisfy their urge to commemorate the day by purchasing a snakehead T-shirt from one of two nearby vendors, who had eye-catching designs.
After the herbicide application, snakeheads continued to grab headlines and attention. For example, Matt Bivens, the Washington Correspondent for the Moscow Times, delivered "a report from the front line of America's most-watched military campaign." It was not Afghanistan, which was pretty much over, nor Iraq, which was still simmering. Rather, the "formidable foe" threatening American security was none other than the snakehead. Columnist Dave Barry argued that, "Instead of DESTROYING the Northern Snakehead, we should IMPROVE it. We need a Snakehead Enhancement Project. … We need to develop a Snakehead that is bigger, meaner, toothier, and—above all—faster. Think what this would do for the sport of fishing!" The Yin Yankee Café, in Annapolis, Maryland, held a special snakehead taste-testing event. Customers were greeted by a sign in the window that read, "Snakeheads: Chicks Dig ‘Em." Although there was some hesitation and even trepidation on the part of the diners, they soon were eating their way through the dreaded snakeheads with gusto. The verdict? Bony, but delicious. Definitely nothing like chicken.
The rotenone application took place on September 4, and within hours of releasing the poison, dead fish started floating to the surface, including many snakeheads. In subsequent days, the death toll at the Crofton pond rose and ultimately 1,200 northern snakeheads were recovered, six of which were adults, along with 1,100 pounds of other fish.
Now that the stars of the Crofton snakehead saga were literally history, the media's fascination with the story quickly waned. But the story didn't completely disappear. For example, on October 4, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service issued its final rule banning the importation and interstate transportation of all species of snakeheads, a move that created a predictable blip in media coverage. And on New Year's Day, The Washington Post offered up "The List" of things that were "in" and "out" for 2003. There, in the "out" column, was the northern snakehead.
The most important impact of the summer of the snakehead is how it raised the public's interest in the issue of invasive species. In among all the hype and exaggeration that attended the story, there was a large dose of good information and real stories about how invasive species have reworked our landscape and changed our lives, often for the worse. The snakehead story, in a sense, forced a public discussion, if not a public debate on the impact of invasive species and what we should be doing to deal with them.
If you set out to write a screenplay for a summer thriller starring a fish, you would be hard pressed to create anything as compelling and fun as the story of the northern snakehead as it transpired during the summer of 2002. There are many reasons why the story captured the public's imagination. The riveting nature of early snakehead stories played a part. They presented a chilling, albeit not completely accurate, image of the northern snakehead. In what could be termed the "Frankenfish trifecta," readers were informed that snakeheads could walk on land; survive out of water for days; and eat every other fish, and possibly every other living thing in sight. Throughout the summer and beyond, this image remained burned into the public's collective consciousness, despite efforts to correct certain exaggerations and inaccuracies in the northern snakehead's profile.
The snakehead story also benefited from periodic rejuvenation. In a process akin to punctuated equilibrium, the story jumped from one evolutionary stage to another. First came the photo, then the fish, then the babies, then the announcement of the federal ban, which was followed by the snakehead panel's findings, the herbicide and rotenone applications, and the post-mortems.
Ironically, part of the reason the snakehead story became larger than life is because the fish were contained. Had the snakehead gotten into the Little Patuxent River or become established in other bodies of water, it is unlikely that the media would have had so much fun with the story. We could laugh about the snakehead only because they didn't cause any damage worth crying about. And laugh about the story we did. When the story ascended to the humorous heights of late-night talk shows, that was proof that the snakehead had become a part of America's cultural landscape, if only for a fleeting moment. And that celebrity, in turn, helped fuel the snakehead story all summer long.
One of the simplest reasons why the snakehead story became so big was its timing. Traditionally, the summer is a slow news season and editors saw the snakehead story as a way to fill space with a gloriously enthralling tale that kept on giving. But this wasn't just any summer. It was less than a year after the horrific terrorist attacks on 9/11, and emotions were still raw. The public was reeling from the collapse of corporate giants such as Enron and WorldCom and the related meltdown of the stock market. And it appeared as if the next stop for U.S. forces was Iraq. In short, it was a summer when many people had more than the usual reasons to take a respite from bad news, and the snakehead story, in comparison, provided a good escape.
The geography of the story also played a key role in its rise. If Crofton had been located one hundred miles east of I've-never-heard-of-it-Idaho, it is likely that even the discovery of thousands of snakeheads breeding wildly and carrying on till all hours of the night would have generated no more media coverage than the harvesting of a three-pound potato. But the snakeheads were in Crofton, Maryland, just a hair's breath away from the U.S. capital, which arguably boasts the largest contingent of media in the world. When the first stories about the snakehead came out, there were plenty of reporters and camera crews ready and willing to take a jaunt to Crofton to see what all the fuss was about. And more than a few reporters saw this as a golden opportunity to step back from covering CEO "perp-walks" and the intricacies of pre-war diplomacy to do an unusual and fun piece on toothed terrors from Asia that had invaded suburbia.
While the snakeheads of Crofton are gone, a very important
and serious issue remains. Every year, new species arrive
in the U.S., and a few of them will ultimately become
invasive. We hope our ability to combat such species
and keep them from gaining a foothold will improve over
time. From that perspective, the summer of the snakehead
is a positive sign. The invaders lost. The northern
snakeheads were stopped dead in their tracks¾in
a manner of speaking, of course.
—Eric
Jay Dolin, Ph.D., is the author of six books, including
Snakehead: A Fish out Of Water, upon which
this article is based. To purchase this book from Smithsonian
Institution Press, please visit www.sipress.si.edu.
His next book, Political Waters: The Long,
Dirty, Contentious, Incredibly Expensive but Eventually
Triumphant History of Boston Harbor—A Unique Environmental
Success Story, will be published in June 2004 by
the University of Massachusetts Press.
ZooGoer 33(2) 2004.
Copyright 2004 Friends of the National Zoo.
All rights reserved.
