Kill These Fish Before They Eat Your Dog

Imagine a ferocious, carnivorous fish that can grow up to 36 inches long and up to 17 pounds, armed with a row of razor-sharp teeth that can cut through flesh like a fork through Jell-O.

Meet the snakehead fish, and it’s what’s for dinner.

Native to Asia, northern snakeheads are often called “Frankenfish” thanks to both their ability to breathe atmospheric air. Young snakeheads can crawl around land—yes, land— by using their fins for up to four days on end (or more if they’re burrowed in mud). The worst part, however, is their set of gnarly, spiked pearly whites.

According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, northern snakeheads arrived in the United States accidentally by aquarium owners (who thoughtlessly set them loose), and by people in the live food fish trade, who released them in the wild to establish a food source. If you frequent the natural fishing holes around Capitol Hill, you can find them highly concentrated in the D.C. area, but they’ve also infiltrated parts of Southern California, Arkansas, and even NYC’s Central Park.

Lucky for us, however, the northern variety tend to keep away from humans, and tales about snakeheads devouring the family dog have turned out to be false. That’s probably small consolation for Fluffy, though, considering that snakeheads can chew through a steel-toed boot.

Other fish, however, definitely have reason to worry. Snakeheads have a habit of completely destroying the food chains of the environments they take over. Back in 2002, the Washington Post did a report on the troublesome fish, unequivocally deeming the species “freakish.” The article quoted a Maryland biologist as saying, “It has no known predators in this environment, can grow up to approximately 15 pounds, and it can get up and walk. What more do you need?”

Lucky for us, however, the northern variety tend to keep away from humans, and tales about snakeheads devouring the family dog have turned out to be false.

Killing snakeheads aren’t easy, as they don’t give up too easily. But this makes them especially fun for anglers, so much so that snakehead tournaments have had a massive surge in popularity the past couple years, especially in areas like Marbury, Maryland, home to the annual Potomac Snakehead Tournament. It might also help that Maryland has given cash prizes to those that have caught the beasts.

Austin Murphy, the director of the event, began hunting snakeheads four or five years ago, when he and his friends were almost always the lone group fishing. Today, during peak snakehead-hunting season (late spring to early fall, when the fish swim in shallow waters), he’ll often see 30 or 40 other boats. On summer evenings, they like to put a grill on the boat and party while they hunt them down.

Fisherman aren’t the only ones grilling the fish though: Both locals and chefs in the area are cooking up these slimy creatures because of their buttery, mild flavor, and firm texture. A growing number of East Coast restaurants have been experimenting with snakehead on their menus, including NYC’s Gramercy Tavern and D.C.’s perpetually-mobbed family-style Thai restaurant Little Serow.

If you don’t feel playing a Russian roulette with your fingers while attempting to catch these toothy creatures yourself, thank God for the ease of the Internet. Fish distributors like Pro Fish sell them frozen, so you can order it from the comfort of your Snuggie, without worrying that your catch will crawl out of the fridge and down to the kennel.

After all, dead fish don’t eat dogs.