Should snakeheads be legal

[Kohan Bros.]

In school i've been doing a research paper on why snakeheads should or should not be legal. All views on the subject are appreciated. Please vote i want a lot of opinions.

 

[cougaran]

I wouldn't mind seeing some of your facts concerning this, as to why or why not. I prob can guess that they are a danger to the wild fish population if they were released to the wild, being that they are extremely hardy and eat everything. I remember a story of the both flanks of the fish being cut off for food and they are customarily tossed back in, would you believe some survive.

 

[Kari]

Legal in what sense? From an article that I just read, if you're fishing and find one (and yes, they're not native to the US, but are sometimes found here) the article said to KILL it 8O I doubt they're going to make it illegal to own them if they don't even require you to have a fishing license to catch them. The article also said something about snakeheads causing damaging our eco-system in our own waters, if they're able to multiply. Is this why you're debating the legal aspect of it?

 

[Kohan Bros.]

In articles that i have read recenty for my research i have noticed that most articles from magazines quoting scientists hypothesis that snakeheads could be a probbem they don't always come out and say it, even though snakeheads are only a problem in very specific areas. Haiwi(sorry for poor spelling), the Virginias, several parts of PA, and Florida are the only areas were their are found to be a threatand considered to have breeding populations. In some newer articles i've read that the numbers of snakeheads being caught in Virginia are decreasing steadily. Most of what i personally believe is that the snakeheads native land is in Asia where they live in rice patty pools. Nothing like the semi-polluted rivers some snakeheads are living in, this includs snakheads that may be living in Lake Michigan.
I also think snakeheads should be legal because Pres. Bush who signed the ban rushed to save himself form all the media attention that snakeheads are dangerous fish that can eat our children. The ban was too quick it took 2 years to pass the ban for all of the US.

I got all of my info and articles from Ebsco Host.

P.S. No fish if its been cut up should be able to live if thrown back.

 

[Kohan Bros.]

When i say legal i mean legal transport live fish into the US. The chances of catching a snakehead arent that good.

 

[cougaran]

That's what i thought too, but I think the point is it shows how hardy a species they are, for a story of that type to be told about them!

 

[Lepomis]

An introduction of a non native species can only lead to problems in our fisheries. You will not find a single fisheries biologist that will say it is a good idea. Chances of catching a snakehead will depend upon many variables so it is difficult to say chances are not good. Take a small pond that has had successful spawns and strong recruitment of snakeheads, non natives can often quickly displace native species and drive many to non existent status in that given body of water. Many of these places have been electroshocked and numbers are definitely increasing. I never recall any claims of snakeheads eating our children? Bottom line people should not release fish to our local watersheds unless they have received proper training.

 

[Kari]

I don't necessarily think it should be illegal. I DO think, however, that with circumstances like that (something that has the potential to cause damage) they should make it a pain in the butt to get one. Wrap it up in a little red tape, make it harder to get them, that way people who aren't really sure if that's what they want will be pretty much detoured from it, and the people that are sure will just have to be a little more patient

 

[lyquidphyre]

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=44175&highlight=snakehead

You might be interested in that article =o)

Oh, make sure to click the "read full story" that is at the bottom.. because that is just a brief summary of the whole article.

I actually printed that out and gave it to my ecology teacher

 

[Olson]

there a so many species of snakeheads that its a tuff poll to vote on.There are Snake heads that get no bigger then 8-9" and some that get bigger then 3'.In a perfect world irresponsible ppl would not release these animals into the un-native conditions and ruin it for the rest of the rest of us who truly enjoyed this species as a hobbyest,but to outlaw some of the dwarf species of snakeheads cause of a few morons hardly makes sense to me and the others who have the tank space and means to keep the monster happy and healthy simply seems un-fair.

also i have kept several species of large snakeheads and native species such as Norther pike and Muskie and in my experience a snakehead would not compete with the speed and aggressiveness off either of the north american natives so with that said a snakehead really would not blow up the eco system,there all over in florida already( thats not kewl either).I will say a snakehead can live in tougher water conditions though

 

[fishfreek]

What occured with the introduction of a non native species and in this case the snakehead happens way to often. If you want to expand your paper and show other locations where non native species exist you can discuss the walking catfish in FL, not sure if they are technicly a family of snakeheads, or the existance of lionfish and other non atlantic ocean fish being discovered in alarming numbers up and down the east coast of the US.

Way to often aquarists will get a non native species fish and decide they want out of the hobby or in the case of large fish the fish will outgrow the tank and the hobbists will just take it to a local watering hole or the ocean for SW and dump it to just forget about the fish. After all its not in its natural habitat right? Its in water... As with any non native species there is a potental that the natural balance of peditor vs prey will be compromised and this new non native species will become the top of the food chain for that given local ecosystem. If this occurs the natural balance is thrown off and preditors that have established a balance with their food source all of a sudden find themselves having to compete with this non native species. The end result is not just a new type of fish in the area but the potental to drasticly affect the existing wildlife. Native preditors could be squezzed into starvation and thus lowering numbers, Prey items could be consumed at a level faster than they can reproduce resulting in a total wipe out over time.

Nature moves very slow and the big "frankenfish" incidents are only a few years old. Give it 10 or 15 years and the habitat that these snakeheads and other non indigenious species are now establishing themsevles may be totally different than it is today. Of course enviormental conditions will affect the non native species ability to survive aswell. If for example the snakehead needs warmer water year round than PA can provide the snakehead will not trhive there where as lets say in VA where the waters may be warmer overall during the year the survival conditions may be more to its liking.

I belive some news reports and scientists discussed during the frankenfish scare that the snakehead had an increadble reproductive capacity. Thus a mated pair could produce a vast number of snakehead off spring in a very short time period. This itself is also dangerious to the eco system as there is a finite amount of food for fish fry to consume in the wild and if snakehead fry are able to consume it faster than native species the native species will begin to be squezed not only from the adult side but from the fry side aswell.

The only way to really solve the problem is to make every potental dumper of non native species aware of the dangers involved with just dumping a fish or any non native creature into the wild.

Not to change the subject tomuch but look at some cities in the mid west that are battling with the idea of hunting cats to control their population due to excessive dumping of domesticated felines.

 

[Kohan Bros.]

there a so many species of snakeheads that its a tuff poll to vote on.There are Snake heads that get no bigger then 8-9" and some that get bigger then 3'.In a perfect world irresponsible ppl would not release these animals into the un-native conditions and ruin it for the rest of the rest of us who truly enjoyed this species as a hobbyest,but to outlaw some of the dwarf species of snakeheads cause of a few morons hardly makes sense to me and the others who have the tank space and means to keep the monster happy and healthy simply seems un-fair.

I was going to bring something like this up that the snakeheads that could or are eco causeing problems are snakeheads in the large channa species that get huge. while in the same channa speices there are many cool colorful snakeheads that were banned that have never shown up in US waters. http://www.fws.gov/contaminants/otherdocuments/injuriouswildlifelist.htm
some of the snkaheads on this list like Channa bleheri(rainbow snakehead max out around 8 inches)

 

[Apocalypse_Gold]

The problem with aquarium snakeheads is stupid people. (A few years back someone caught a piranha in a river in utah. In a newspaper article wildlife officials said they weren't very worried because winter would kill them off and then proceeded say that if they were planted in a particular warm spring, they could survive and wipe out a unique species. Smart.) Yes it is unfair that a few stupid people ruin it for the responsible owners, but that happens with everything. It is unfortunate that even the smaller species are blanket banned but if they were allowed, people would import the others and misidentify them.

 

[Lepomis]

Size makes no difference to the impact a non native species can and often makes on our watersheds. Zebra muscles, gobies, etc......

 

[Veneer]

Still, the vast majority of Chaniids could not conceivably, in any of the tributaries of the Potomac River watershed, survive winter.

An interesting perspective:

Industry & Ecology
The Exotic Species War
Scientifically mandated or culture clash?

by Ronald Bailey

Driving around in the Patagonian Andes in December, my wife and I were enchanted by the masses of luminous blue lupines and brilliant yellow scotch broom lining many of the roads. We stopped frequently to take photos of the floral abundance. How insensitive of us! Both, it turns out, are evil foreigners. Lupine is from North America and scotch broom hails from Europe.

Since 1992, the nations of the world have been waging a war against such foreign invaders under the Convention on Biological Diversity. In the United States the public regularly reads anguished stories about the "damage" being caused by alien invaders such as zebra mussels and purple loosestrife. Environmentalist groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the National Wildlife Federation fiercely denounce these foreign intruders, urging Americans to band together to force these invaders from our shores.

In response, Congress passed the National Invasive Species Act and the executive branch has adopted a National Invasive Species Management Plan aimed at closing our borders to alien species. NASA warned recently, "Non-indigenous invasive species may pose the single most formidable threat of natural disaster of the 21st century." But is all this jingoistic furor justified? Some biologists and other analysts are beginning to doubt it.

For example, University of California-Santa Barbara biologist, Daniel Botkin, points out in his article "The Naturalness of Biological Invasions," that "biological invasion is a natural process everywhere, requisite for the persistence of essentially all species on Earth over the long term. Being able to seek new habitats and survive in them is essential in an environment that changes at all scales of space and time."

In the May 2005 cover article for Discover, senior editor Alan Burdick asks the startling question, "Are Invasive Species Really So Bad?" (not yet available online). The article concludes, "Fifty years of invasion biology has failed to identify a clear ecological difference between an ecosystem rich in native species and one chock-full of aliens. Invasions don't weaken ecosystems—they simply transform them into different ecosystems, filled with different organisms of greater and lesser value to us." (To be immodest, this is exactly the point I made in my "Bioinvaders" article nearly 5 years ago.) Introducing new species generally boosts the total number of species dwelling in any given ecosystem.

What about the claim that invasive species pose "the single most formidable threat of natural disaster"? It is certainly the case that some introduced species have detrimental effects. Think West Nile virus and Norway rats. We should take steps to prevent the introduction of disease organisms and parasites that show a high likelihood of harming species that we value.

But even the NRDC admits that over the past two centuries, only one in seven of the thousands of introduced species have caused environmental, health, or economic harm. In fact, most, such as wheat and cows, have provided people with far more benefits than harms. And while some species are threatened with extinction by the introduction of outside species—most infamously the case of the brown tree snakes that killed off several bird species on the isolated island of Guam —in fact, fewer than 6 percent of species considered endangered are menaced by non-native species, according to Burdick.

Ecologists had assumed that introducing alien species would be detrimental because these species would disrupt ecosystems in which species had co-evolved for millions of years. Species from different ecosystems would harm tightly functioning "natural" plant and animal communities. This assumption has recently been called into question by the creation of an "accidental rainforest" on Ascension Island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. As New Scientist (subscription required) points out, Ascension's bare central peak once called White Mountain is now covered with an extensive cloud forest consisting in guava, banana and wild ginger, bamboo, the white-flowered Clerodendrum and Madagascan periwinkle, Norfolk Island pine and, eucalyptus from Australia and is renamed Green Mountain. This new rainforest, less than 150 years old, is an affront to conventional ecological wisdom that species must co-evolve in order to function together. Instead the Ascension rainforest supports the dissident notion that species engage in "ecological fitting". That is, species make the best of what they have.

Ascension's rainforest is evidence that nature is super resilient and that moving species around the globe is unlikely to cause wide-scale ecosystem collapses. Ecological puritans loathe the new Ascension Island rainforest as a pastiche and lupine and scotch broom in Patagonia as sinful aberrations. However, less conservative temperaments welcome foreign species as fascinating scientific and aesthetic experiments that can enrich landscapes such as Patagonian roadsides. Ultimately, the battle against exotic species is a cultural and aesthetic war, not one compelled by scientific evidence.

From http://www.abetterearth.org/article.php/1033.html.

Look also to the following articles:

http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues05/feb05/pdf/snakehead.pdf

"Snakehead May be at Home in Potomac River"

"Fish or Foul? What you don't know about the area's most notorious monsters...and the people who love them."

From the last:

Whatever ichthyologic lessons he might have taught go unlearned because of a January 2003 state regulation that made it illegal to own snakeheads in Virginia. Unlike most bans where the animals involved are pets, this one did not include a grandfather clause that would have allowed people who already possessed snakeheads to keep them. All snakehead owners were required to turn in their pets for disposal. Seymore was not even wanted dead or alive—the Old Dominion wanted Seymore dead.

In March 2003, Blaeuer read about the ban in a Washington Times article that reported an arrest for possession of and attempt to sell snakeheads at a Richmond pet store. The article stated that current owners could get a permit from the DGIF, which struck her as a reasonable solution.

Someone from her store called the department and explained about Seymore, only to be told that the state was not, in fact, issuing permits.
Snakeheads were being seized and destroyed.

 

[Jason_S]

I agree with Kari...don't ban them but instead put heavy restrictions on them so that they are much harder to get. Of course, I feel the same way about Pacus, Irridescent sharks, SA red tailed catfish and pretty much any other species of fish that grows say 30" or more.