A menace has invaded Georgia waters

Georgia wildlife authorities fear a rapacious invasive Asian fish that can survive on land could be breeding in the headwaters of the Altamaha River.

An angler landed an adult northern snakehead recently in a Gwinnett County pond near Lilburn and alerted officials of the strange fish. A top predator, the northern snakehead has invaded other U.S. waters and is now getting close to both the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes, but this was the first report in Georgia.

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources’ Wildlife Resources Division went on high alert after the discovery and are calling on anyone who catches or comes across one to kill it immediately, freeze it and notify state wildlife officials, preferably with a photo and location data.

The tough, hardy fish can breathe air and live on land or in mud for days.

The snakehead is capable of taking over areas it invades, displacing native fish, changing ecological relationships and even posing the threat of extinction for some native species.

Native to parts of Asia including Russia, China and the Koreas, where it is a food fish, the northern snakehead primarily preys on other fish but will also eat mollusks and other animals.

“Whatever it can prey on is in trouble,” said Byron Freeman, director of the Georgia Museum of Natural History and an authority on Southeastern aquatic life.

“They can live just about anywhere,” said Scott Robinson, fisheries operations manager for the Wildlife Resources Division, or WRD.

Investigators are hopeful the fish has spread no further than the small wetland upstream of Yellow River tributary Sweetwater Creek in Gwinnett County.

When state wildlife investigators began searching wetlands below the privately-owned pond, they turned up four juvenile specimens of the fish.

The pond and wetlands drain into a tributary of the Yellow River, which begins in Gwinnett County and flows through several suburban Atlanta counties before it joins the Alcovy River to form the Ocmulgee River at Lake Jackson. The Ocmulgee flows into the Altamaha River, Georgia’s largest.

Officials don’t yet know if the juveniles are the offspring of the adult the angler caught and are continuing their search.

The species first showed up in the United States less than 20 years ago, in Maryland. Since that 2002 discovery, anglers have pulled snakeheads out of the Potomac River and ponds or reservoirs in Massachusetts, Philadelphia, California, North Carolina and even New York City’s Central Park.

One killed in Maryland last year weighed almost 20 pounds and was nearly 3 feet long.

Anglers and others can help in several ways, according to the Wildlife Resources Division:

• Learn how to identify the northern snakehead.

• Don't dispose of aquarium creatures in water bodies.

• Put discarded bait in trash cans or disposal stations, or above the waterline on dry land. (Don’t put snakeheads on dry land, since they can survive on land.)

• Dump water from boat compartments, bait buckets and live wells on dry land.

Anyone who catches a snakehead should contact the nearest regional Georgia DNR Wildlife Resources Division Fisheries Office. Offices are listed at georgiawildlife.com/about/contact#fish).

More information about northern snakeheads can be found at georgiawildlife.com/aquatic-nuisance-species.