May 15, 2014 — Maryland is taking aim at two voracious, invasive species — the blue and flathead catfish — through a major public awareness campaign that it hopes will educate both anglers and diners about this large and domineering predator.
The goal is to stop the spread of the catfish, which are eating some of the Chesapeake Bay’s prized fish, interrupting the food chain and spreading rapidly throughout many river systems.
The catfish came to the Chesapeake in the 1970s and are in almost every tributary, according to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Flatheads seem to favor the Potomac, though they’ve also been found in the Lower Susquehanna. Blue catfish have proliferated in the James River and in the Potomac, where anglers have been known to catch single fish weighing close to 100 pounds.
Maryland’s campaign will include signs at popular fishing spots, explaining what the blue catfish looks like and warning anglers not to move the fish to other waterways so as not to spread the invasive animals.
The campaign will also remind anglers that there is no limit on how many blue catfish they can catch, and that fishing the species is one way to control its numbers.
Read the full story from the Bay Journal