OPINION - Editorial

Fish fight

Cheer for your favorite

HENRY FOSTER of Fayetteville may be only 10 years old, but he knows his Arkansas fishes and which one he would choose as the official, certified and hereby proclaimed state fish: the alligator gar. Which would make a fitting aquatic counterpart to the Arkansas Razorback on the football field. (Both may look fierce, but as this past football season's record demonstrated, can be proved not-so-much. Enough! It's basketball season.)

Master Henry can cite a scholarly source as backup when he sets out to explain his boyish enthusiasm for the alligator gar: Lindsey Lewis, a fisheries biologist in Conway, notes that Hernando de Soto and his fellow explorers described eating a fish with "the size of a hog, with rows of teeth above and below" as they made their way through 16th-century Arkansas, which even then must have been a culinary as well as aesthetic experience. In their case, one enjoyed with the natives. Mr. Lewis says the alligator gar is the only creature in the state that would match such a description. Or, we'd add, would want to.

Henry Foster may also want to consider a career as a political organizer; he's started a petition drive at change.org and, at last count, more than 800 people had signed on to it. Master Henry has already written five members of the Legislature asking for their support in this fish fight. Why should they join him in his campaign? Here are some of the good reasons he cited:

--The alligator gar is a threatened fish in this state, which is one of only four in the union that doesn't have a state fish. The critter needs all the friends it can get.

--The alligator gar is a whopper of a fish. The biggest of its fish family, it can grow up to 10 feet long and weigh 300 pounds. And that's no fish story.

--It's not exclusive of any one part of the state, but can be found scattered all over Arkansas.

A couple of far-sighted legislators who believe in planning ahead say they'll draft a resolution that'll nominate the alligator gar as the state fish during the next regular session of the Ledge in 2019. Thank you, state representatives David Whitaker of Fayetteville and Charlene Fite of Van Buren. Some of us can already see the T-shirts and ball caps bearing the logo of the alligator gar. All the fish needs is a nickname to make him a popular trademark. How about Smiley? He looks friendly enough, thanks to that fixed grin.

Although we do expect a food fight if the Ledge ever does have to vote on this matter. You'll have representatives from the Delta who will swear by the catfish, and the catfish farmers, in their districts. And you'll have folks from the hills who will demand that the trout get its place in the sun, or the pan. This is called democracy. And what Master Henry, his classmates and friends might learn from this experience might not be just a little. Even something as seemingly innocuous as the naming of a state fish might go down in flames as the crappie and bass and bream constituencies are eventually heard from. And, kids, if you think you've kicked a water moccasin's nest on the shore of this debate, just wait till you age a few years and the debate turns to budgets, health insurance, gambling, taxes and War Memorial football games.

AFTER ALL is said, done and voted on, Henry Foster's work might prove an education. Representative David Whitaker had only praise for young Mr. Foster's research and organizing talent. "I'm really impressed with the young man's initiative," as he put it. "He speaks very passionately about it." And convincingly.

Greg Leding, another state rep from Fayetteville, notes that an alternative to the alligator gar--the catfish--was proposed as the state fish way back in 1995, but was voted down after a spirited debate during which the catfish was derided, according to the late great John Robert Starr of the Democrat-Gazette, as a "scum-sucking bottom-feeder."

Nothing seems to get Arkansas' fighting spirit up like a legislative fish fight. Isn't it about time for another one? And may the best fish win.

Editorial on 01/18/2018

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