Many of those fishermen say they don't see that devastation in the places they fish. How did the dreaded fish get here? Two snakeheads were released into the pond, The Washington Post learned, by a man who'd bought them from an Asian market in New York City, intending to turn them into soup.įor every outdoorsman like Kenny, who believes snakeheads will ultimately destroy local populations, there are others who have come to prize, even obsess over, the fish for its fighting prowess on the end of a fishing line. Think of the 'killer bee' scares of the 1970s and the media attention those received.Ī Washington Post headline from July 2002 found that the 'Freakish Fish Story Flourishes.' This fish was able to gulp air and 'walk.' Horror movies were made - including one called 'Snakehead Terror,' starring the supermodel Carol Alt - and locals sold T-shirts. When another was caught there and reported to Maryland's Department of Natural Resources, all aquatic hell broke loose, and the legend of the 'Frankenfish' was born. Northern snakeheads were first seen in the spring of 2002 when an angler hooked one in a swampy pond behind a shopping center in Crofton, Md., about 30 miles from Washington, D.C. 'There's not a biologist around here that says we're okay.' Related video: For Louisiana fishermen, Hurricane Ida threatens a way of life 'There's not one place here where they haven't had an impact,' Kenny tells me as he hoists a thick eight-pounder from the cooler. He rattled off a list, his voice a machine-gun staccato: minnows, bass, perch, crayfish, frogs, even baby ducks. Kenny, 47, didn't filet the fish in the cooler behind the Woolford Store in Dorchester County, one of his hangouts, but he's seen his fair share of snakeheads splayed open and knows they're usually full of eggs and other animals. Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post.

They've since spread south to Virginia, north to New Jersey and likely beyond. Kenny, a lifelong outdoorsman, has been sounding the alarm for years about the invasive species, a powerful predator native to Asia and Russia that was first discovered breeding on the East Coast in a small suburban Maryland pond on the other side of the Chesapeake Bay 20 years ago.

Fisherman Caz Kenny reached into the cooler to highlight some of the controversial fish's finer points, such as the sharp, gnarled teeth behind its ghastly mug. A dozen or so dead northern snakeheads lay stacked in slime and ice behind a general store in Woolford on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

Frankinfish challenge fishing planet