And now a word from Dr. Snakehead
Walter Courtenay, aka Dr. Snakehead, is perhaps the foremost authority on the invasive species, northern snakehead, which showed up in a Crofton pond in 2002 and has since reared its toothy head in lakes and rivers throughout the region.
When a northern snakehead was netted by a waterman at the mouth of St. Jerome Creek, on the Chesapeake Bay side of St. Mary's County, it raised eyebrows.
The fish, an aggressive predator, has spread thoughout the Potomac River and its tributaries south of Washington. But scientists hoped the salinity of the bay would keep it bottled up in the river and would prevent infestation beyond Point Lookout.
Now, it's a question of how long it will be before snakeheads slither their way north to a new watershed--the Patuxent River.
Courtenay, who continues his research at the U.S. Geological Survey, emailed me from his office in Florida:
"Amy Benson at our USGS lab (who is keeping records of new reports of snakeheads, along with many other exotics) ... confirmed that she had not yet received a report on this capture from St. Jerome Creek from folks in Maryland.
"She went into our Introduced Aquatic Species (AIS) database to look for the nearest location to St. Jerome Creek where one or more northern snakeheads had been captured and found one -- in St. Mary's Creek, lower Potomac near Chesapeake Bay.
"If snakeheads from St. Mary's Creek found lenses, or pockets, of lower salinity water around [Point Lookout] separating that location from St. Jerome Creek, then it would be easily possible for migration into St. Jerome Creek.
"Such an event would likely require increased amounts of fresh water passing through both the lower Potomac and from St. Jerome Creek (and any other freshwater sources entering the upper Chesapeake from above).
"Two questions remain: (1) did that movement happen or; (2) did someone move one snakehead from the Potomac to St. Jerome Creek? If another (or other) snakeheads show up in St. Jerome Creek, that will provide the likely answer.
"If there are other snakeheads that made it into St. Jerome Creek, they will likely move upstream there to stay."
The frustration here for state and federal wildlife managers is that they spent the summer of 2002 trying to prevent snakeheads from entering the Patuxent River from the Crofton pond. The river, the longest one within Maryland, is home to sensitive wildlife areas, such as the Jug Bay Sanctuary.
Now the concern is, will snakeheads invade the watershed from the other direction.
