The threat that caused Williams to lose sleep? Fish.
In particular, he worries about blue and flathead catfish and northern snakehead, the dreaded trio of invasive fish that have been wreaking environmental havoc in Maryland waters for decades.
The fish are responsible, state officials say, for feeding native species, reducing their numbers and changing entire ecosystems. Total catches of hard blue crab, rockfish (also known as striped bass), yellow perch and other native Maryland species have dropped between 27 percent and 91 percent since 2012, according to the state. The invasion of invasives in the region is so devastating that last year Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) to the federal government to declare a commercial fishing disaster in Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay waters.
Faced with potentially dire consequences, Maryland ramps up its counteroffensive. Williams, who last year became the first invasive fishes program manager for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, manages several efforts to monitor the invasive population and keep it under control. One approach has shown promise: encouraging the people of Malindi to eat catfish and snakes (despite the unappealing name.)
“If you can’t beat ’em, eat ’em” may prove to be the most effective strategy.
Rapacious – but delicious – predator
On a warm Saturday last month, Williams traveled to Gunpowder Falls State Park, northeast of Baltimore, for the Snakes in Dundee fishing derby. The annual event is one of several supported by state and federal partners to encourage snakehead harvesting and educate the public about the harm they cause. Anglers are given tips on the best way to catch fish, including bowfishing demonstrations and suggestions on which lures and techniques are most successful.
But catching fish is only part of the day. Teaching people how to prepare fish and encouraging them to eat them is just as important.
So Williams, who grew up in southern Maryland and has fished all his life, spends part of his day wearing a fluorescent orange fishing bib while demonstrating how best to fillet a snakehead. A crowd of fishermen murmured in admiration as he slid his knife from the fish’s tail to its head to separate the filet from the skin and lifted it triumphantly.
Then it’s time to eat. Smoke from a nearby barbecue wafted into the air as volunteers grilled snakehead sprinkled with Old Bay seasoning — Maryland’s unofficial seasoning — and handed out samples. The reviews are overwhelmingly positive.
“Better than rockfish,” said Darrin Hoiland, 41, of Edgewood, who won the day’s derby by hooking a 12.7-pound snakehead.
Blue catfish, introduced to the Chesapeake Bay watershed in the 1970s, reproduce at an exponential rate, enjoy long lives and eat almost anything. With few predators, they thrive in the Chesapeake and spread to new waters at a rapid pace. Northern snakeheads, native to China, were first spotted in Maryland in 2002 in a pond in Crofton. They too have a reputation as vicious predators, although perhaps not as destructive as the blue catfish.
For years, Maryland has had no limit on how many invasive fish can be caught. In hopes of curbing their spread, the state encourages anglers to kill rather than catch-and-release any northern snakehead, blue catfish or flathead catfish. Maryland also made it illegal to introduce three invasive fish into state waters and set fines of up to $2,500 for violators.
Despite all containment efforts, the invasives’ reach continues to expand. Northern snakehead, already abundant in eastern Maryland waterways, have been caught as far west as Frederick and as far north as Montgomery County. The blue catfish seems unstoppable. More and more, it looks like Maryland will have to eat itself out of this mess. And there are encouraging signs that may be the case.
Creates an appetite
Matthew Scales, director of seafood marketing for the Maryland Department of Agriculture (and, yes, he’s heard all the jokes about his name), says that when people try blue catfish, they’re surprised and compared this on striped bass. But Scales knows that catfish have a reputation as bottom-feeders, so he’s not above gussying up their image.
“Anytime we talk about blue catfish, I kind of try to rebrand it a little bit,” Scales said. “I say ‘wild-caught Chesapeake blue catfish.’ So we differentiate ourselves between farmed and wild-caught. And then we put ‘Chesapeake’ in there so people know it doesn’t come from the South, it comes from the Chesapeake Bay.”
A growing consumer market for blue catfish has encouraged more fishing over the past decade. About 700,000 pounds of blue catfish from Maryland waters and the Potomac River were landed in 2013 by commercial fishing operations. Last year, that number jumped to more than 4 million pounds, according to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.
State agencies have encouraged restaurants and grocery stores in the region to offer blue catfish and snakehead. The state recently partnered with Fish and Hunt Maryland to create the Catfish Trail, a collection of efforts aimed at combating invasive fish in Maryland waters. And last month, the Maryland Department of Agriculture released a list of restaurants and retail stores that offer blue catfish.
Maryland also renamed the northern snakehead the Chesapeake Channa, hoping it would encourage people to eat more of the fish. (“Channa” is the genus name of the snakehead.) In his letter introducing a bill to change the name this year, Maryland Del. Todd B. Morgan (R-St. Mary’s) sums up the issue:
“The bottom line is that we have a public relations problem,” Morgan wrote. “Watermen want to catch these fish, restaurants want to sell them, and environmental experts want the fish to disappear. The big obstacle in all this is the lack of interest of consumers in eating fish. It tastes great, makes a delicious fillet, and is considered a delicacy in many parts of the world. However, most people can’t get past the name of the fish — no one wants to eat a fish named Snakehead!”
But not everyone is a fan of the new moniker, including derby winner Hoiland, who estimated he caught about 150 pounds of snakehead last month.
“Changing the name isn’t going to help, because the name they want to change it to is stupid,” Hoiland said.
‘Reel Rewards’
Government agencies are not the only ones informing the people of Malindi of the growing threat moving in their state’s waters. In Baltimore, a community environmental organization pays money for the heads of invasive fish. Reel Rewards, a project of the Environmental Justice Journalism Initiative, gives anglers a $30 reward for every northern snakehead, blue catfish and flathead catfish they land in the twice-weekly collection.
This is the first year for the Reel Rewards project, but the results are promising, said Donzell Brown, executive director of EJJI. The project has collected 384 fish since May. In addition to helping remove invasive fish from the Patuxent River, the project aims to reach out to residents of nearby working-class and lower-income neighborhoods.
It “raises awareness of environmental issues in a community that is not used to being personally involved,” said Veronica Malabana Lucchese, 27, manager of EJJI’s environmental science program and a doctoral student at the University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science. “We’re rewarding the fishermen for their time and helping them restore native habitat.”
On a Wednesday night last month, Christopher Taylor pulled his truck into a Baltimore parking lot along the Middle Branch of the Patuxent River to collect the bounty for the fish he had caught. From behind he hauled a large blue cooler and placed it in a pop-up tent staffed by Reel Rewards volunteers.
Taylor, 33, opened his cooler to reveal the heads of about 25 snakeheads and blue catfish resting on ice. Water and mud drip from the fish as volunteers place them in zip-top plastic bags to be counted and tracked. Program participants take photos of fish when they catch them and provide geolocation through an app that helps track where they were found.
With the snakehead invasion, Taylor doesn’t think much can be done at this point. He says bowfishing snakehead is never a challenge because there are so many of them.
“They’re here to stay, really,” he said. “I can shoot 50 in one place, come back the next day and shoot another 50. It’s not that hard.” Since early March, he said, he has caught about 500 snakeheads.
But Taylor, who sells snakeheads and blue catfish to local restaurants and markets, sees consumption growing. He also thinks snakehead tastes better than rockfish and recommends grilling it with butter and Old Bay seasoning.
“There’s no fishy taste or smell,” says Taylor. “If you’ve never experienced it, try it. You will love it.”
Those words are music to the ears of Maryland officials like Williams who hope that the growing appetite for invasive fish will reduce their threat to the Chesapeake Bay watershed. While Williams knows it’s probably impossible to eradicate the fish, he hopes the efforts will help minimize ecological damage.
“Buying a blue catfish, buying a northern snakehead when you see it at the grocery store or a restaurant, it makes a difference,” Williams said, noting that it supports the industries that remove the fish. “That’s really our best control strategy at this point.”
