'A predator on par with a shark'

RICHMOND, Va., July 1 (UPI) -- The blue catfish, introduced 30 years ago as a game fish in the James River, has risen to the top of the food chain, Virginia experts say.

"We have an invasive species that is taking over the ecosystem," Rob Latour, a marine biologist with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at the College of William and Mary, told the Newport News Daily Press. "It's a predator on par with a shark."

Blue catfish have grown explosively in population and size in the past few years while many commercial species are becoming rare, Bob Greenlee, a biologist with the state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, told the Daily Press.

In the 1990s, scientists doing sampling would get about 1,500 catfish an hour in the James, he said. Now they catch 6,000.

Fishermen recently reeled in a blue catfish weighing 102 pounds, the largest freshwater fish ever caught in Virginia, wildlife officials said.

Some biologists said they believe if all the fish in the James were weighed, two-thirds would be blue catfish.

At 8 years old, the fish weigh only about 4 pounds. But then they start consuming other fish -- and even fully grown crabs -- and gain as much as 10 pounds a year.