Just Another Fish Story

Excitement Over Exotic Snakehead Ends as Quickly as It Once Erupted

The camera crews are gone; the morning game of musical parking spaces is over; and a bright orange plastic fence festooned with yellow "No Trespassing" signs blocks the dirt path leading to the now-famous Crofton fishing hole.

All in all, it's a dramatically different scene compared with last week's, when news crews from as far away as Canada descended on a pond behind an Anne Arundel County shopping center to see where a nonnative, invasive fish had been found.

Joe Gillespie, the Crofton angler who caught the first northern snakehead two weeks ago and then netted a bunch of snakehead babies last week, was lying low, perhaps having had his fill of the limelight.

The more than 80 baby fish that Maryland Department of Natural Resource biologists caught last week were now either on ice or formaldehyde or had been shipped to a laboratory in Florida for identification.

Now all that's left is for the experts to decide what to do about the scores of other northern snakeheads presumably still in the pond.

In the fevered media pitch of their discovery, the creatures' proportions and behavior reached near-mythic descriptions: " 'Frankenfish' mystery explained -- Voracious intruder on the loose" read one headline; "Snakehead Fish Ravages Maryland Pond" blared another; "Pond critter is big, nasty and can walk" warned a Canadian paper.

Biologists said they do consider the fish a threat because it is known to prey on other fish and can clear a pond in a short time.

The pond where the snakeheads were discovered is behind the Route 3 shopping center. And threatening is just how shopping center employees saw the shouting headlines, jostling television crews and parade of publicity-seekers that thronged around the pond.

"Fish? I don't know anything about the fish!" snapped one employee of a nearby bank who neither wanted to discuss the matter nor identify herself.

Property owner Danny MacQuilliam, who tried to maintain as low a profile as possible through all the hubbub, was relieved on Monday when no television camera trucks invaded the parking lot, no state Department of Natural Resources trucks showed up and no reporters crowded around the pond.

"It's too bad, because there are folks who have been able to enjoy fishing there for a long time," said MacQuilliam. But because of liability concerns and at the request of state officials, he and an employee on Friday hammered up the bright orange plastic mesh fence to keep the public out.

By Monday, though, there were already signs that some people would not be denied; the fence was squashed down in one place where someone obviously had stepped over it.

"My kids thought I was crazy for not having bumper stickers, T-shirts and hats made up with this fish on it," MacQuilliam said. "If that was my 15 minutes of fame, I guess I blew it. But I'd rather not have it that way."

At first, MacQuilliam said, he was puzzled by the world's fascination with the fish. He got calls from friends all along the East Coast wanting to know if they were found in his pond.

Yes, it was his pond, he told them. No, there's "No Snakehead Crossing" signs yet, he added.

But one of his sons did suggest he at least give the fishing hole a name:

Walking Fish Pond.

MacQuilliam said he'd think about it.