Now Gothamist can feel our pain and horror: they’ve had their first sighting of a snakehead fish in a lake in Queens.
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.
For those of you who have repressed the memories, the snakehead has been making a splash for several years now in area waterways since one was discovered in a Crofton, MD pond in 2002. They’re monstrous-looking fish that can survive for several days out of water, have the ability to walk on land, and can cause serious problems for native fish populations.
The media hype surrounding the snakeheads was enormous and, as this interesting article from the Washington City Paper last summer suggests, probably a bit overblown (additionally, the article discovered that snakeheads are damn tasty). But that doesn’t mean they’re not going to a) take over the entire East coast and b) eat your babies. So be vigilant, New York, Toronto, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Paris, Boston, Chicago…
