PermeateFree said:
The smart ape has done it again!
>>The northern snakehead is a long, blotchy-patterned fish that can breathe on land and travel on the ground by wriggling its slippery body. But those might not be the species’ most nightmarish qualities. Snakeheads have a voracious appetit; they’ve been known to chow down not only on other fish, but also crustaceans, reptiles, mammals and small birds. They are invasive to the United States, threatening to displace native species and upset the balance of aquatic ecosystems. The fish have been reported in more than a dozen states across the nation and, as Christine Hauser reports for the New York Times, they have now been found for the first time in Georgia.
“These fish are like something from a bad horror movie,” former Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton said when proposing the ban some 17 years ago. “They can eat virtually any small animal in their path. They can travel across land and live out of water for at least three days. They reproduce quickly. They have the potential to cause enormous damage to our valuable recreational and commercial fisheries.”<<
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/invasive-fish-can-breathe-and-move-land-has-been-found-georgia-180973330
From the first sentence above:
>>The fish have been reported in more than a dozen states across the nation and, as Christine Hauser reports for the New York Times, they have now been found for the first time in Georgia.<<
The waterways of Florida has high aquatic diversity:
The Everglades, a complex wetland mosaic bounded by human development at the southern tip of the Florida Peninsula, is home to a wide array of species, including 68 threatened or endangered animal species. Species richness within Everglades National Park, at the southern extreme of the Greater Everglades ecosystem, is 1033 plant taxa, 60 reptile taxa, 76 mammal taxa, 432 fish taxa, 349 bird taxa and 38 amphibian taxa.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226979308_Species_diversity_in_the_Florida_Everglades_USA_A_systems_approach_to_calculating_biodiversity
The waterways of SE USA:
We document the biodiversity and conservation status of an extraordinarily diverse and endangered ecosystem in the United States that has failed to attract the same attention as tropical ecosystems—the rivers and streams of Alabama and adjoining states. Relative to North America as a whole, Alabama is a highlight of aquatic diversity supporting 38% of native fresh water fishes, 43% of native freshwater gill‐breathing snails, 60% of native mussels, and 52% of native freshwater turtles. Of these, 41%, 77%, 34%, and 22% of the fishes, snails, mussels, and turtles, respectively, are endemic to Alabama and an adjacent state. Like many tropical systems of developing nations, this fauna is in an imperiled state, with 10%, 65%, 69%, and 43% of Alabama’s fishes, gill‐breathing snails, mussels, and turtles, respectively, considered either extinct, endangered, threatened, or of special concern. Unlike tropical systems, however, little effort has been made to protect the taxa and their habitats. Only 40% of fishes, 1% of gill‐breathing snails, 32% of mussels, and 20% of freshwater turtles are formally listed as either threatened or endangered via the U.S. Endangered Species Act of 1973; no critical habitat has been protected. Clearly, the biodiversity crisis in not limited to tropical systems of developing nations. Although the Endangered Species Act of 1973 helps to ensure a future of sustainable diversity, efforts must be made to hasten recognition, protection, and recovery of critical habitat, particularly for hotspots such as the aquatic systems of Alabama.
https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1523-1739.1995.09040800.x
