this doesn't seem too much like reporting to me. more like an editorial.
I guess that shouldn't surprise me but it sort of does. I get the
impression that Bob was standing up with a sandwich sign saying "The end of
the natives is near!" "Rise up against those who release exotics!"
I would think that you were a bit more discreet, no?
I get the overall impression that the Post reporters and editors don't
really get the whole picture. It seems like they think the DNR is
overreacting or something. I don't know if Md has a law against releasing
exotics inthe wild, but many states do. If there is a law, then the guy
wasn't all that innocent.
Geoff Kimber
Lexington,KY
----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher Scharpf" <ichthos_at_charm.net>
To: "NANFA e-mail list" <nanfa_at_aquaria.net>
Sent: Monday, August 19, 2002 7:52 AM
Subject: NANFA-- NANFA in Washington Post
> Yesterday, the Maryland NR began poisoning the snakehead pond in Maryland.
> On hand was Bob Bock, who used his American Currents press credentials to
> get behind the barricade and talk to officials while members of several
> newspapers and TV stations talked to Bob. Here's what the Washington Post
> said:
>
>
> But as the sun rose higher, a conservationist arrived to take advantage of
> the convergence of media around the pond to publicize his agenda: the
> massive destruction of native species by alien ones, including the
> snakeheads, which were dumped there innocently by a man who had bought
them
> in New York to make soup. But the potential for ecological disaster is
> inestimable, some said.
>
> "The worst-case scenario is the snakehead gets out and spreads across the
> Chesapeake Bay to the Atlantic Coast and the rest of the country. It could
> create a wave of extinctions that would be irreversible and devastating,"
> said Bob Bock, a past president of the North American Native Fishes
> Association, which has about 12 members in the area and 450 nationwide.
>
>
> For full story, see:
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33772-2002Aug18.html
>
>
> It was a busy day for Bob. Later that day he led a NANFA collecting trip
to
> Paint Branch Creek in College Park, Maryland. Stephanie and myself, Ed
> Bielaus of Bethesda and his wife Lillian, and Harry Knaub of York, PA,
> attended. The water was low because of the drought, and so the fish were
> concentrated and easy to net. The snorkeling was great. Stephanie watched
> two snapping turtles get it on....sorta. (They were 69ing it.) And we both
> enjoyed feeding huge shoals of satinfin shiner by running our fingers
> through the substrate and stirring up a thin cloud of debris. 20 species
> were seen/sampled:
>
> American eel
> gizzard shad
> satinfin shiner
> spotfin shiner
> common shiner
> spottail shiner
> swallowtail shiner
> blacknose dace
> longnose dace
> creek chub
> white sucker
> northern hogsucker
> banded killifish
> mosquitofish
> redbreast sunfish
> green sunfish
> pumpkinseed
> bluegill
> smallmouth bass
> tessellated darter
>
>
> Chris Scharpf
> Baltimore
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