I just returned from a week-long camping trip and was greeted to some very unpleasant news in the Canadian fish world!
Apparently, an Ontario woman caught a strange fish in Canadian waters last weekend; that is believed to be a Northern Snakehead.
While fishing in the Welland Canal – which links Lake Erie and Ontario last weekend, Amy Merry reeled-in the weirdest looking fish she, or anyone else around her, had ever seen.
“As I kept reeling it in, it would take off and pull the line back out. I thought it was going to snap the line or even the pole,” Merry told CTV news.
If this ugly invader does indeed turn out to be a Northern Snakehead – one of the few fish species that can actually breathe air – it would be very bad news for the Great Lakes System!
To give you a full appreciation for how nasty these fish are, here’s an excerpt on the Northern Snakehead taken from my book Weird Facts about Fishing.
“The northern snakehead is another odd fish that is native to the Yangtze River in China where they survive in large numbers. However, as with many other accidental introductions into North American waters, they can also be a scary sight and create substantial damage. The northern snakehead story in the United States dates back to the turn of the new millennium where a restaurant owner from New York City reportedly ordered some snakeheads to make soup for his restaurant. Well, that’s when all the trouble started.
The northern snakehead, you see, is a very peculiar fish in not only its looks but in its ability to breathe air. These critters can live for several days out of water and in China are often packaged and shipped live as they will remain fresh for longer providing a fresher meal. It is believed that the New York restaurant owner received his snakeheads for soup but found them too cute to eat, so later decided to put them in his aquarium instead. As the story goes, his two snakeheads quickly consumed all the ‘feeder fish’ the restaurant owner offered them and in no time became too large for the aquarium.
It is believed the man then released them into a pond behind the house where these native Chinese fish had their run of all the local pan fish in the lake, which they made short work of devouring. As time went on, the snakeheads reproduced and eventually found their way into other nearby water systems. They have reportedly even been caught by anglers in Maryland and turned into the Department of Natural Resources for examination. Because of their ability to breathe air and the fact that they are extremely resilient, with such a veracious appetite, the northern snakehead is a real concern to local waters. Some people call them the “Jaws” of the new millennium. They are yet another example of an exotic fish species accidentally released into non-native waters.
Within a year, it was discovered that the snakeheads had been found in six other U.S. states.”