LITTLE ROCK — The northern snakehead, an aggressive fish native to Asia, has been found in Lee County and could colonize the lower White River basin.
A voracious predator, the northern snakehead looks similar to a grinnel, or bowfin, which is native to Arkansas. It thrives in slow, murky backwaters such as those found in the Mississippi River Delta region of Arkansas. It is prized as a delicacy in Asia, but it is destructive in wild, non-native environments. Reproducing populations are also in Maryland and Virginia.
Of particular concern is the snakehead's eventual impact on the valuable black bass, crappie, bream and catfish resources in southeast Arkansas. Oliver said it could be devastating.
"This is some of the worst news we could get as fisheries biologists," said Mark Oliver, assistant chief of fisheries for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. "We can see looking in their stomachs that they'll eat everything that's out there. They're eating crayfish and bream, and they'll kill fish just because of the competition factor. From the White River, they have access to much of the state."
Lee Holt, district fisheries biologist for the AGFC in Brinkley, confirmed a breeding population of northern snakeheads April 28 in a drainage ditch in Lee County. Oliver said a farmer found the first one about a week ago on the ground near a drainage ditch. Since then, he said AGFC personnel also found adult snakeheads, including three that measured 20 inches, 17 inches and 14 inches long, respectively.
Farmers found more snakeheads Monday near an irrigation pump. AGFC personnel quickly applied rotenone, which suffocates fish, to all the ditches in the area. They killed about 100 snakeheads and collected 55 live specimens for study, but Oliver said floodwaters have probably already moved fish into Big Creek and the White River.
From there, he said, they will be able to spread unhindered into the St. Francis, Arkansas and Mississippi rivers.
"Unfortunately, all these creeks are way out of their normal borders," Oliver said. "Once they're out in the streams, there's no way to do anything about them. The water's too cool to rotenone them, and there's too many places for us to miss them."
Mike Freeze of Keo, who served on the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission from 1999-2006, said northern snakeheads originally came to Arkansas in 2000 by way of Jack Dunn's Fish Farm in Monroe. Dunn, who died Feb. 23, intended to raise the fish commercially. Freeze said that Andy Goodwin, professor of aquaculture at Arkansas-Pine Bluff, advised Dunn to exterminate them.
"Dr. Goodwin called and said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was probably going to list the northern snakehead as injurious in a couple of years," Freeze said. "He said you really don't want to be raising them."
On Oct. 4, 2002, the USFWS added all snakehead species to the list of injurious fish under the federal Lacey Act. That action made it illegal to import snakeheads into the United States or to transport them across state lines. Arkansas banned possession of them that same year.
"Jack didn't break the law because there was no law to break at that time," Freeze said. "Jack told me he killed his."
At least, Dunn tried. The northern snakehead can live several hours out of water, during which time it can move across dry ground to reach new waters. The northern snakehead is long and narrow. Its color is mottled brown, with snakelike, diamond-shaped markings. Unlike the grinnel, which has a blunt, round head, the snakehead has a narrow, snakelike head. Its anal fin runs about half the length of its body.
Freeze said Dunn removed the snakeheads from his ponds with a seine and dumped them on the levees.
"Some must have flopped down the levee and got down in the drainage ditch," Freeze said. "The worst case is that they'll continue to spread, and they'll be another fish we're going have to deal with, and there will be ecological impacts that we can't see."
Sports, Pages 21, 25 on 04/30/2008