Eating the Invasive “Frankenfish” to Stop Its Spread | National Geographic

[Music] The snakeheads are a pretty smart fish. I think I've seen them where they'll stir up mud, and they'll sit there, and they won't move. They'll stir up that mud to make a camouflage for their s, but then they won't make any more mud. So as the current washes the little mud cloud away, they're still sitting in the same [Music] spot.

Some people call them Franken fish. Some people think that they look like a snake, uh, that they're ugly. It's easier to encourage harvest for a species with a bad reputation, but I don't think that allows us the right to do it without thought. That's part of our job; it is to not simply encourage people to harvest the animal but also to prevent invasive species from becoming introduced.

We, as biologists, we don't have the manpower to reduce the population that much, so we really need the help of anglers to do that. This tournament advertises a control method that the department is encouraging, so we're encouraging complete removal and harvest. More importantly, we're encouraging [Music] consumption.

It's been about 10 years since they've been in the Pomac River. Unfortunately, they've pretty much traversed the river from Great Falls pretty much down to the mouth, which is over 120 river miles. We just don't know the impacts of this thing, but it's a large freshwater fish. One female can carry up to 100,000 eggs, so they really have the chance to outcompete the fish that are in the ecosystem now. So that's the main concern, and that's why it's considered an invasive species. [Music]