Posted on 07/22/2002 7:30:13 PM PDT by Shermy
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The land-walking snakehead fish that is native to Asia has been found in seven U.S. states and the Bush administration will announce on Tuesday a ban on U.S. imports of the predatory fish.
The snakehead, which can grow up to 3 feet long, eats other fish and can walk across land to find new sources of food in other lakes and streams. The fish can stay out of water for up to three days.
The fish came to light this summer after several snakeheads were found in a Maryland pond. The so-called Frankenfish were dumped there by a local resident who had initially imported them to make soup.
Snakeheads have been found in six other states: Hawaii, Florida, California, Maine, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, according to the Interior Department.
Interior Secretary Gale Norton will make the announcement that 28 species of snakehead fish will be subject to an government import and trade ban, unless a special permit is granted, a department official said on Monday.
"Interstate commerce will be illegal, you can't sell them across state lines," the official said.
The fish has primarily been imported to the United States for its excellent taste, even when eaten smoked or dried.
"Soup and other culinary delights, that's how it's gotten over here," the official said.
A recipe for watercress soup with snakehead fish can be found at Chinese food recipe Web site: http://www.foodno1.com
On Tuesday, Norton was also to discuss what the government will do to help affected states destroy the fish.
Draining lakes that have snakeheads runs the risk of pumping water with some of the infant fish into nearby lakes and streams.
Maryland officials are considering poisoning a small lake where at least 80 baby snakeheads have been found.
A scientific plan this week is expected to test various chemicals on the baby snakeheads to pinpoint the best way to kill them.
"If they got into the larger (water) system, they could alter the food chain and displace other species," said John Surrick, spokesman for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.
The people of northern Thailand and Myanmar (formerly Burma) believe a snakehead fish is a reincarnated sinner.
The freshwater fish has an ugly wide mouth and heavy scales, making it look like a snake's head and letting it swallow prey as large as it is.
Adults eat fish, frogs, aquatic birds and small mammals, while juvenile snakehead fish prey on earthworms, water bugs, tadpoles, dragonfly larvae and other organisms.
With sharp teeth and powerful jaws, big snakeheads can bite other fish in half
Ah, memories of my Uncle Bill spearing carp in the ditches around my grandpa's land when they came in to spawn....
the southeastern farting crocogator.
If it tastes better than bass [or more generally, the sunfish family - BLECCH!!!], then why not import the damn thing. Largemouth bass are some of the most disgusting fish on the face of the earth.
I'd only be worried if it started to supplant the catfish population.
Almost like the Clampetts going golf-hunting.
"You need a big club, shotgun and then spiked shoes to stamp em out?"
"Wheeel doggy. :)"
Clones of Hillary Clinton and coral snakes.
Check out this:
Professor Spencer F. Baird wrote in 1874 in the report of the United States Commission on Fish and Fisheries: "There is no parallel in the point of destructiveness to the bluefish among the marine species on our coast, whatever may be the case among some of the carnivorous fish of the South American waters. The bluefish has been likened to an animated chopping machine, the business of which to cut to pieces and otherwise destroy as many fish as possible in a given space of time. All writers are unanimous in regard to the destructiveness of bluefish. Going in large schools, in pursuit of fish not much inferior to themselves in size, they move along like a pack of hungry wolves, destroying everything before them. Their trail is marked by fragments of fish and by the stain of blood in the sea as, where the fish is too large to be swallowed entire, the hinder portion will be bitten off and the anterior part allowed to float away or sink. It is even maintained with great earnestness that such is the gluttony of the fish that, when the stomach becomes full, the contents are disgorged and then again filled." |
Basically, they are oceanic piranha! Actually, a school of Blues would destroy a school of piranha, or a shark, or even a bather who was hapless enough to get in their way (this is why many Northeast beaches close when the Blues run). Consider this quote;
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