- Even as state biologists pulled more dead snakehead fish
out of a poisoned Crofton pond yesterday, a crabber netted another large
one, very much alive, in the Inner Harbor.
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- Biologists said the 22-inch, carnivorous fish probably
had been dumped in the harbor from an aquarium and posed no threat to Chesapeake
Bay.
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- But the surprising catch prompted state and federal wildlife
officials to renew their plea to Maryland lawmakers to ban possession of
the torpedo-shaped fish from Asia.
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- "There's no need to panic," said federal biologist
and snakehead expert Walter Courtenay. "This is not a good thing,
people dumping these fish indiscriminately. But they can't live long in
water with high salinity and it couldn't possibly survive a Baltimore winter."
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- The fish was taken first to the National Aquarium and
then to the Department of Natural Resources in Annapolis, where biologists
identified it as a giant snakehead, a different species than the ones poisoned
by the state this week in Crofton.
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- It was caught near the Korean War Memorial in Canton
Waterfront Park by James Scritchfield, 35, of Baltimore, who saw the large
fish struggling and retrieved it in his dip net. It died a short time later.
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- "It was in distress, which leads us to believe it
had been dumped within the last 24 hours," said DNR spokesman John
Surrick. "Whoever did it almost certainly knew what they were doing."
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- Courtenay said the new invader is a tougher customer
than the northern snakehead, and is sold in Baltimore area pet shops.
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- "Of all the 28 species of snakehead, the giant has
the sharpest, longest most developed teeth," he said. "It's the
one fish I know that kills more fish than it eats. It's the one reported
to have attacked and killed a human."
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- Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton is expected to approve
a ban on the importation and transportation of all 28 species of snakehead
as early as next week. But that, said a spokesman, doesn't end the problem.
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- "Unfortunately, that's as much as we can do,"
said Interior's Ken Burton. "States like Maryland have got to take
the lead on banning possession. If they don't take action, people can keep
buying them in pet stores and when they get too big, dump them in local
ponds."
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- "Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Arkansas have
banned them," Courtenay noted. "I don't run the politics in your
state, but if I did, I would Nobody needs snakeheads."
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- Maryland lawmakers have declined to give fisheries officials
the power to take action against dangerous aquatic life, preferring to
dole it out on a case-by-case basis. Dumping exotic fish is prohibited
in freshwater; the penalty is a $100 fine. Dumping is not prohibited in
tidal water.
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- DNR Secretary J. Charles Fox is expected to ask the legislature
in January to broaden the department's powers.
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- "With all the publicity, I can't think of any Marylander
who could not know the seriousness of releasing a snakehead in the wild,"
said Mike Slattery, of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Chesapeake
Bay office. "They had to know it was something that was risky and
wrong and irresponsible."
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- Also yesterday, state biologists found two more adult
northern snakeheads floating among the dead fish in Crofton, raising doubt
about the presumption that biologists had already accounted for the pair
dumped in the pond two years ago by a local man.
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- The most likely explanation, Courtenay said, is that
the northern snakeheads grow rapidly, perhaps as much as a foot a year,
and the four dead adults represent two generations.
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- Copyright © 2002, <http://www.sunspot.net>The
Baltimore Sun
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