Eradicating Snakeheads From Arkansas Waterways

March 30, 2009

Release from: Joe Mosby
Log Cabin Democrat (Arkansas)

It may be the largest fish purge ever attempted, this campaign in east Arkansas to wipe out the unwanted snakeheads.

Several public agencies, more than a hundred people and three-quarters of a million dollars are heading the current attack on an ugly and voracious invader from the Far East.

The snakeheads are reproducing in the Pine Creek system in Lee and Monroe counties, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said. If uncontrolled, AGFC Fisheries chief Mike Armstrong said, the snakeheads could make a major negative impact on native fish - not immediately but over the years.

It is much more complex than an issue of somebody dumping out unwanted aquarium fish.

The snakeheads have been found elsewhere in the nation, and they have been attacked by fisheries managers with mixed results.

The threatening fish were eliminated in a small lake in Maryland and a small lake in New York with the use of rotenone, a chemical long used in Arkansas for wiping out fish in a specific area. But the Potomac River was a lost cause with the snakeheads.

The Arkansas campaign that began the use of rotenone on Friday, March 20, on Pine Creek and its feeder waterways is on a much larger scale. "We are going after a 49,000-acre watershed," Armstrong said. "There are 39 miles of Piney Creek and Little Piney Creek, and there are 400 miles of ditches leading into these creeks. That's a big area."

The rotenone is being spread in creeks and ditches by crews in boats, by personnel riding all-terrain vehicles and by crews in special tracked vehicles called Marshmasters, brought in by the Fish and Wildlife Service. The chemical is also being spread aerially from a helicopter.

AGFC's fisheries biologists point to a major asset in using rotenone - it quickly breaks down in the water, rendering it harmless within a few hours. The chemical is toxic to fish but not to humans and air-breathing animals and birds. Wind doesn't carry it to unwanted places, the biologists said.

Working on the eradication effort are more than a hundred people, most of them from the Game and Fish Commission but also including U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service personnel and some fisheries biologists from the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. Indiana's Division of Fish and Wildlife contributed a hefty sum toward the purchase of rotenone.

Rotenone is made from the powered roots of some South American plants and has been used for centuries in Peru to kill fish for human use. Armstrong said, "There are other sources for poison that that be used to kill fish. Green walnuts, for instance, can be ground up and used the same way as rotenone. The green walnuts just aren't as effective as rotenone."

The campaign to get rid of snakeheads in Pine Creek and its feeder streams is a harsh one, a total kill.

All fish will be wiped out, Armstrong said. After crews check to see if any snakeheads remain and none are found, fish will be restocked later this year. The restocking from AGFC hatcheries will augment natural restocking, he said. "When there is a void, fish will move in on their own."

Piney Creek flows into Big Creek in Lee County, and this joins the White River to the south. Then the White empties into the Mississippi River. Stopping the snakeheads before they move downstream is an immediate objective of the campaign, and at the same time, the expectation is for downstream fish to move into the empty Piney Creek after the rotenone work.

Where did Piney Creek's snakeheads come from?

They may be the result of escapees from a fish farm near U.S. Highway 79 south of Brinkley. Some years ago the fish farm raised some snakeheads in response from requests from suppliers to Asian food markets. The fish are considered delicacies by some Asian people.

The fish farm disposed of its snakeheads in 2001. Arkansas, along with the rest of the nation, banned snakeheads in 2002, Armstrong said.

About a year ago, a farmer, Russell Bonner, found a strange fish wiggling across a road on his farm. He took it to AGFC fisheries personnel, who identified it as a snakehead. More snakeheads were found in a ditch on the Bonner farm, and others have been found in streams and ditches to the north. One was found just east of Brinkley, Armstrong said.

A major problem with snakeheads, he explained, is that the "fish are extremely hardy and very adaptable. They can reproduce five times a year."

Baby snakeheads have been found swimming with adult fish in the Piney Creek drainage, he said. AGFC collected about 150 adult snakeheads before the rotenone campaign began.