The World's Fair Community: Voracious Snakehead Fish in Meadow Lake - The World's Fair Community

New York TImes 8/9/05:

"Last month, biologists with New York State's Department of Environmental Conservation were doing a routine sampling of the fish in the brackish water at Meadow Lake in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens when, to their horror, they found a northern snakehead fish, then another and another until they had five, including one monster 28 inches long.

The snakehead, a native of Asia, is a compact stalking machine packed with rows of sharp teeth, a torpedo-like body suited to darting out of hiding holes to chase, and catch, other fish and a voracious appetite that can lead them to devour every other fish in the lake or pond where they live."

Rest of the story:
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/09/nyregion/09snakeheads.html?pagewanted=print" target="_blank">http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/09/nyregion...agewanted=print</a>

These fish are a real threat to any ecosystem where they are dumped. Many municipalities have killed them by massive poison doses, which kills all other fish, or by draining the pond. If they go the latter route in NY it would be fascinating to see what is down there.

Finally! The Tower of the Four Winds shall be revealed!

If it isn't voraciously eaten!

Now they'll never find Hoffa's body

According to an article in Newsday they'll likely raise the salt content of the water and that will kill this sensitive fish while leaving other, more hearty species in no danger.

snakehead proving harder than expected to deal with:

<a href="http://www.timesledger.com/site/printerFriendly.cfm?brd=2676&dept_id=542415&newsid=15059175" target="_blank">http://www.timesledger.com/site/printerFri...newsid=15059175</a>

<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->...state officials may have to resort to drastic measures to ensure the fish do not overtake the lake's native population of bass, carp and eel. Those measures, the state Department of Environmental Conservation said, may include killing everything in the entire lake with either poison or by raising the salinity levels.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

The 2005 Hong Kong Boat Races. I wonder if they knew those killer fish were in the lake? Do they eat people?

It's always funny to me how politicians or their agencies take credit for what the common american, actually does. Peter, someone I know, was fishing with his friends and caught the Snakehead Fish. Being a naturlist,
he immediately knew this was not a native fish. Checking his books he was amazed and concerned that indeed it was the Voracious Snakehead Fish. The fish after eating everthing in the lake could actually crawl on land for up to 18 hours to find another source of water, and consume it's wildlife . Peter said though, with the geography, that the fish would have had an impossible time of finding another habitat in the general area and was dumped there by someone living close to Meadow Lake. Just the facts...

<a href="http://www.scifi.com/snakehead/" target="_blank">http://www.scifi.com/snakehead/</a>