The “Frankenfish” is back.
The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission today will begin draining Pine Lake in Wheaton Regional Park to find and kill northern snakeheads — the air-breathing, land-walking, foreign fish that threatened to eat its way through state waterways in 2002.
“We are concerned that such a fish was found in a local lake,” said David Weaver, spokesman for Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan.
“Northern snakehead fish are not dangerous to people or animals,” said Nathaniel Barber, acting police chief for the park police.
“It is an ecological threat only,” said Marion Joyce, spokeswoman for the commission.
Pine Lake, which feeds the Anacostia River, will be drained to destroy any snakeheads and prevent their migration to nearby streams, lakes or ponds, said Ms. Joyce.
Terry Wintermoyer, 23, of Silver Spring, was fishing for bass Monday when he caught the young, 3-pound, 19-inch specimen of the banned breed, which can eat other fish, frogs, vegetation and meat, including ducks.
“It was a very strange looking fish,” said Ms. Joyce, explaining that Mr. Wintermoyer put the fish in a plastic bag, without air or water, and took it to park police headquarters.
“The fish was still alive an hour and 25 minutes later,” Ms. Joyce said.
Police sent a photo to Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources. After identifying the breed, DNR officials sent crews with nets and electric shockers to Wheaton Regional Park to search for other snakeheads.
“It turned up a lot of fish but no other of that species,” Ms. Joyce said.
Screen barriers were inserted at water entries and exits of the 5-acre lake, Ms. Joyce said, and a trout fish restocking, scheduled for yesterday, was canceled.
Police and park maintenance crews will patrol the shoreline of Pine Lake as it is drained to watch for any remaining snakeheads. The Asian breed can cross short distances over land by walking with their fins.
Pine Lake gets most of its water from Sligo Creek, a tributary of the Anacostia River, which is a tributary of the Potomac River, which flows into the Chesapeake Bay.
A federal ban on snakeheads was imposed in October 2002, six months after two adults of the breed were caught by a local fisherman in a 4-acre pond near Crofton, in Anne Arundel County.
Officials sprayed poison on that pond, killing 1,000 juvenile and six adult snakeheads, all believed to have been produced within a year. Two adult snakeheads were traced to a Maryland man who discarded them in the pond after buying them alive in a New York market.
Snakeheads are natives of China and Korea. They have been illegally imported from Japan as food and for aquariums. Northern snakeheads can grow as large as 47 inches and weigh up to 15 pounds.
Last year, a Perry, Ohio, man pleaded not guilty to illegal possession of four young snakeheads, each weighing 3 pounds and measuring 19 inches. He said he was unaware that possession was illegal, reported the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
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