Skip to footer

Snakehead bounty: Maryland offers $200 gift card

Snakehead bounty: For every angler that catches and kills a snakehead fish in Maryland, the state is offering a $200 gift card "bounty" plus other incentives.

|
Courtsey Maryland Department of Natural Resources
Snakehead fish are an invasive species found in eight US states. Maryland is offering a bounty on snakeheads for the second year in a row.

The second annual Maryland state bounty on snakeheads is sure to boost the media hype around this Asian invasive species.

Coming to a website near you: "Frankenfish" or "Fishzilla" or "The Fish That Ate Maryland."

Maybe that should be the next Maryland contest: Another Fearsome Nom de Mar for the Channidae family fish, that is believed to have originated in northern India some 50 million years ago.

No doubt, the concern over the snakehead species is justified. Already, the fish can found in at least eight US states. It's not just the fierce teeth, or that it can actually exist out of water, breathing air via a suprabranchial organ, for up to four days. The real threat is that it is a "top-level predator." In other words, it has no natural predators in the US.

The major concern is that it may replace the largemouth bass in Maryland and Virginia waters. In 2004, snakeheads were first spotted in the Potomac River. Since then, they've multiplied, and gotten bigger.

A study by Maryland's Department of Natural Resources and the state's Fish and Wildlife Department concluded that largemouth bass and snakeheads are battling it out for survival. The study found that the two species would eat each other's offspring, live in shallow water beneath protective lilies and grass and chase frog baits. The study also found that when snakehead populations declined, largemouth bass populations grew.

Last year, 69 fishermen entered the snakehead bounty contest, killing 82. Given that a single female snakehead can spawn 15,000 eggs at once, and typically mates five times a year, the contest isn't likely to put a huge dent in the snakehead population.

“We don’t expect that anglers will eradicate the snakehead population,” said Joe Love, DNR Tidal Bass program manager. “We do believe this promotion and inspiration of anglers can help control the snakehead population. The information we gain from the Angler’s Log reports are also helpful in assessing the abundance, spread and impact of these feisty fish.”

This year's Maryland bounty includes a $200 gift card to Bass Pro Shops at Arundel Mills, a Maryland State Passport, which provides unlimited day-use entry for up to ten passengers in a vehicle, unlimited boat launching at State Park facilities and a 10 percent discount on State-operated concessions and boat rentals, or a Potomac River Fisheries Commission fishing license.The winner will be randomly drawn on November 30, 2012.

To enter, anglers must submit catch details and a photo of their dead snakehead online through the DNR Angler’s log, a fishing site.

Not sure if your catch is really a snakehead? Check out the Maryland state video on how to spot a snakehead – or Fishzilla.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Snakehead bounty: Maryland offers $200 gift card
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0409/Snakehead-bounty-Maryland-offers-200-gift-card
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe