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Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War!
Walking catfish caught crossing road
July 20, 2001
By Dan McCue
staff writer
STUART -- Monika Daly could barely believe her eyes as she returned to her
home in the Florida Club development late Wednesday afternoon.
A strong thunderstorm passing through the area an hour earlier had drenched
her yard with more than an inch of rain. In the wetness near the curb, she
noticed "a kind of wriggling."
I was certain it was a snake," Daly recalled Thursday. "But when I got close,
it lifted itself on its front flippers and tried to kind of, flip-flop walk
away from me."
With that, the reality of the situation became clear.
It was a walking catfish Daly had found. In another moment -- just long
enough for her to scramble for a bucket to return the mustachioed fish to a
pond behind her house -- five more were making tracks, such as they were,
across Blue Stem Way.
"I've been a Florida resident for years, but have never seen anything like
this," Daly said.
When her husband, Frank, came home, Daly greeted him with, "Honey, you're not
going to believe this. ..."
He didn't.
But Thursday morning, as the sun rose over the Treasure Coast, a dozen more
of the black, 8- to 10-inch-long catfish were making their way across the
street.
Originally native to southeast Asia, the walking catfish, or clarias
batrachus, as it is scientifically known, can walk short distances on land,
moving from one water body to the next -- thanks to two unique aspects of its
ana- tomy: auxiliary breathing organs and the strong spines of its fins that
can lock, allowing it to walk.
In its native environment, the walking catfish inhabits muddy swamps, ponds,
ditches, and rice paddies, but it initially came to America from Thailand as
a popular pet shop item.
Paul Shafland, a biologist with Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation
Commission's exotic fisheries laboratory in Boca Raton, said the odd catfish
entered the Florida ecosystem during the 1960s, when several of the fish
escaped from commercial fish farms near Deerfeld Beach and Tampa.
"Basically, they appear to have simply walked out of these facilities,"
Shafland said.
Since then, the walking catfish has become one of the most extensively
distributed of any exotic fish in the state, moving into a range stretching
from Central Flo- rida to the southern tip of the peninsula.
Besides surprising Florida homeowners from time to time with their sudden
emergence -- often after heavy rains -- the walking catfish is considered
somewhat problematic because it competes with native game species and is an
efficient predator that devastates freshwater fish communities.
Despite their presence in Florida wetlands, the state Fish and Wildlife
Conservation Commission requires people to secure a permit before owning one.
"We see them every once in a while, but because of the drought, it's probably
been quite a long time since we've seen a significant emergence in this
area," said Philip Baldwin, program director for the Florida Oceanographic
Society.
Baldwin theorizes that during the drought, populations of walking catfish
continued to increase in deeper ponds and wetlands, and the rain provided the
fish with a chance to find new places to live where there are fewer of them
and more food sources.
The walking catfish feeds on insect larvae, earthworms, shells, shrimp, small
fish, aquatic plants and even debris and garbage.
"That's one reason they're so good at competing against native species,"
Baldwin said. "They'll eat anything."
Shafland said Baldwin's take on walking catfish is the common view, but one
he disagrees with.
"Don't get me wrong, we consider these animals biological pollution. We don't
like them and we don't want them here. But they simply haven't proven as
catastrophic as once was feared," the biologist said.
"In fact, except for these isolated cases, we don't see nearly as many as we
used to," Shafland continued.
Heavy rains, thick clouds and, in some cases, even heavy morning dews, are
key to inspiring the catfish's movement, he said.
"That's because although they have a simple lung and can survive out of water
for some time -- I've kept some alive in the lab for months that way -- they
still need a certain amount of wetness around to keep their skin moist. Once
they begin to dry out, they start to die in a hurry," Shafland said.
That's exactly what began to occur on Blue Stem Way on Thursday. As Daly
sought to retrieve the catfish and throw them back in the pond, passing cars
and the hot Florida sun began to take their toll.
By mid-morning, several vultures had gathered in the area to feast on an easy
meal and pick off stragglers.
Daly said her brush with walking catfish is just the latest in a string of
interesting animal-related "encounters" she's had since moving to Stuart last
year.
"First, of course, there was the battle our development was having with the
pig farm," she said, referring to last year's courtroom showdown between the
Florida Club and farmers Tho- mas and Faith Ann Rossano, who often played
loud music on their property -- claiming their pigs liked it.
Last year, a jury found the music the Rossanos played for their pigs was a
nuisance to the club, but decided the family wasn't intentionally interfering
with its neighbors or with the golf course community's business.
On another point, the jury decided the pigs and their odor weren't a
nuisance.
More recently, Daly stepped out on her back porch and was greeted by a large
alligator.
"Still, I love living here, and these walking catfish take the cake," she
said.
Asked whether her experiences with the unusual animals have affected her
appetite, Daly didn't miss a beat.
"I don't know," she quipped. "But I do seem to be losing my taste for
catfish."
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