Proceedings of the First International Snakehead Symposium

Preface

doi: https://doi.org/10.47886/9781934874585.fmatter

The First International Snakehead Symposium was the brainchild of the Mississippi River Basin Panel on Aquatic Invasive Species (MRBP). Following the onslaught of invasive Asian carps in North America, members of the MRBP became concerned with news that Northern Snakehead Channa argus was expanding its Arkansas-based range in middle America while at the same time rapidly advancing through mid-Atlantic states from a different epicenter. Greg Conover and Jessica Howell were instrumental in getting this vision off the ground and coordinating with Duane Chapman. Duane contacted me, and the endeavor began. The mission was to put individuals with the most current biological and ecological information about snakeheads into one room and let the knowledge fly. This book contains most of that material. Most (not all) because not all presenters had the time and/or depth of material to prepare a peer-reviewed manuscript. However, abstracts are included from presentations not published, and video of the entire symposium is archived on the Virginia Chapter, American Fisheries Society website (https://units.fisheries.org/va). The symposium included 22 technical papers, 11 posters and a panel discussion, a transcript of which is included in this volume.