Snakehead in Inner Harbor Creates a Scare

Fish Found by Crabber Is Sold for Aquariums, Poses No Threat, Officials Say

Maryland officials had been feeling pretty good about their efforts to snuff the snakehead until they got the call yesterday.

Another one had apparently been found. It was big. And spotted. And in Baltimore Harbor.

The snakehead, caught by a crabber outside a seafood restaurant, was 22 inches long and ugly. Unsure of what it was, the crabber took it to the Baltimore Aquarium, where officials thought it looked odd enough to ask for a second opinion.

A state police officer from the Department of Natural Resources was in the area, so he picked up the still-flailing fish and took it to headquarters in Annapolis, carrying the creature in an old crab pot lined with a plastic bag filled with ice.

At the department, biologists crowded around in disbelief to eyeball the latest specimen.

It was a snakehead, all right.

Despite a summer-long multimedia campaign against the marauding Chinese snakehead fish, found first in a suburban fishing hole in Crofton, another one had been dumped in a public waterway.

Apparently someone hadn't gotten the message that this was wrong; or someone simply wanted to stir mischief.

Biologists snapped a couple of pictures of the monster after confirming its identity and issued a bulletin.

Then, because it's still not illegal to own or purchase a snakehead, they returned it to the crabber.

A task force of experts convened by Maryland Natural Resources Secretary J. Charles Fox is preparing recommendations for preventing releases of snakeheads by outlawing the sale and transport of the fish. U.S. Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton has proposed banning them altogether.

Nevertheless, the timing of yesterday's discovery was particularly frustrating, because crews are still cleaning up the aftermath of Wednesday's poisoning of a four-acre pond where the fish were found this summer. More than 800 snakeheads, including four adults, have been found dead in the last three days.

If there is a silver lining to the discovery, it's that the species was a giant snakehead, or Channa micropeltes, not the hardier northern snakehead found in Crofton, biologists said.

The giant snakehead, commonly sold in the aquarium trade, can grow 40 inches long. But it is a tropical fish that doesn't do well in northern climates or saltwaters, such as Baltimore Harbor and the Chesapeake Bay, state officials said.

Late yesterday, the grandmother of crabber James Scritchfield was still waiting for him to return home with his prize.

"He's probably showing it to his friends now at the bars," said Margaret Airey, 80. "He loves fishing and crabbing; he'll do it all day without eating a thing. He needs to get a job."