Nearly 3,000 fish that don’t belong in Chesapeake Bay waters have been intercepted and turned into dinner, thanks to a team at the Conowingo Dam on the Susquehanna River.
Conowingo Dam owner Constellation Energy operates a fish lift each spring that is designed to help migrating fish, like American shad, make it past the dam and to their spawning habitat upstream. Described as “a water-filled elevator”, the lift collects anadromous fish species during their spawning run and transports them to their traditional spawning areas in the upper Susquehanna.
The only problem? Sometimes fish make it into the lift that don’t belong there—invasive species like northern snakehead (newly re-named Chesapeake channa, to make it sound more palatable), along with blue catfish and flathead catfish. That’s when technicians remove the invasive fish one by one and harvest them to help feed the hungry.
In the 2024 season, running from March to June, they pulled more than 18,000 pounds of invasive fish from the fish lift—keeping nearly 3,000 individual fish out of the Bay watershed. The vast majority were Chesapeake channa, with 2,106 of them removed.
The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) says the number of Chesapeake channa sharply increased this year, with more than double the amount from any other year in the four seasons the program has operated.
It’s a sign of invasive species’ ability to multiply, a trend that has been seen further down the Bay with all three species: channa, blue catfish and flathead catfish.
Once technicians pulled the invasive fish from the lift, the fish were taken to Maryland seafood wholesaler J.J. McDonnell to be processed for eating. Some were distributed to food banks in Cecil County, where the Conowingo Dam is located. DNR kept some fish for research.
The team approach between Constellation Energy, DNR, J.J. McDonnell and environmental consulting firm Normandeau Associates Inc., shows how business and environmental interests can work together for a greater good.
“The removal effort at Conowingo Dam is a prime example of how partnership can amplify our ability to manage invasive fishes and limit their spread,” says Branson Williams, DNR’s Invasive Fishes Program Manager.
While we don’t have our own fish lifts to intercept predatory invasive fish who feed on native aquatic species, we can do our part to get more invasives out of the Bay. Anglers are encouraged to harvest Chesapeake channa, blue and flat head catfish and kill them. DNR asks everyone to report their catches using the Invasive Species Tracker form on the DNR website.
