Invasive snakehead species in Philadelphia

In Philadelphia the season is changing along with its invasive species. Lantern flies are covered with bright white will be returning, and they will be multiping over the summer and soon will become an even bigger problem. But there has been another invasive that's been here for a while, the snakehead.

At John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum snakeheads are a huge problem at john heinz, but luckily there are efforts that are in motion to try and stop them.

“We have fishing competitions for snakeheads at the refuge to try and spread awareness and dwindle their numbers. We are also working with the U.S. Fishing and Wildlife Service to try and find solutions” says Lamar Gore, manager of John Heinz Wildlife Refuge.

You may be wondering how such an invasive fish was introduced to the U.S., trust me it's not that surprising.

“Snakeheads were discovered in the U.S in 2002 and were originally brought to the US as an exotic pet. Snakeheads are aggressive hunters with natural predators in the U.S. because of this they are on a rampage in some marine environments.” says Lamar Gore

But this isn’t the first time something like this has happened, remember the spotted lantern fly, the Brown marmorated stink bug, and the Zebra mussel. These animals attack and disrupt the food web.

“They're very impactful to the environment but how detrimental to the environment it is also depends on what type of animal or plant it is and I think kind of like a continuous basis I would think it would take a couple of years for the environment to recover if it ever does.” says one of Mr.Malloy Bio student.”

Unfortunately one of the reasons that some of these animals are able to thrive is because there isn’t any animal that is familiar with the invasive to see it as food.

“I would guess if it was a predator in its natural habitat it would be a predator in its new environment, but it can depend on the animal.”

It may be hard to try can control invasive species like the snakehead.

Raising awareness about invasive species like the Snakehead fish is best or the community which is why we wrote this article please keep an eye out and try and do your part