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Homeland Security Takes (Washington, D.C., Aug. 9, 2010) -- Vowing to keep Americans safe from terrorists of all species, the Homeland Security Department today further extended its protective umbrella to include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "It just makes good sense," declared George W. Bush, who has served as Homeland Security czar since his second term as President ended two years ago. "The service has been so bogged down in environmental lawsuits for the last decade that it hasn't been able to do its part in the our never-ending war on international and underwater terrorism. At the top of the department hit list is the dreaded northern snakehead, an Asian fish alleged to have been accidentally released into American waters at the turn of the millennium. The Maryland man who stepped forward and confessed to releasing the first of the terrorist fish was extensively questioned, but not arrested after authorities determined that he may have simply been an unwitting pawn in a sinister conspiracy by terrorist forces abroad. The man claimed that he had originally purchased the fish via the internet to make soup for his sick sister. She got well before the fish arrived, and he released the growing snakeheads in nearby pond, not realizing that they were a threat to good, law-abiding American fish and their families. "There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this is a terrorist fish," Bush said. "I mean, it's from Asia, it kills and eats everything it meets. It can crawl up on land and spend days walking its way to another body of water, for God's sake. It's obviously a commando fish, schooled in an al-Qaida camp somewhere offshore and brought into America to terrorize and destroy our native herds of fish." The northern snakehead invasion surfaced in mid-2002, when a breeding population of the voracious fish, which can grow up to 3 feet long, was discovered in a drainage pond near a shopping center in Crofton, Maryland. State natural resource investigators immediately feared that the snakehead population, which had grown to more than 100 strong in the pond in only a couple of years, had already moved into the nearby Little Patuxent River, which flows into Chesapeake Bay. Authorities have not since found evidence that the snakeheads had broken from the confines of the Maryland pond and moved into larger waters. However, the FBI, which came under the direct control of the Homeland Security Department in 2006 -- along with the CIA , National Security Agency and the National Guard -- has regularly issued broad warnings that an attack by the northern snakehead may be imminent. "We are certain that these fish, despite the past several years of efforts to eradicate them, are still out there, in numerous 'sleeper cells' awaiting an opportunity to strike out at unsuspecting indigenous fisheries throughout the country," said Tom Ridge, FBI director. "We can't say where, we can't say when, we can't say how, we can't even say why, but every red-blooded American with fins should be in a constant state of readiness. The Department of Homeland Security has urged every man, woman and child with access to a fishing pole to get on America's waterways and troll for snakeheads. Though terrorists they may be, they are also very tasty, according to those who formerly imported the fish as an oriental delicacy. "Catch 'em, kill 'em, behead 'em and eat 'em," Bush declared. "These ravishing creatures would do the same to you if they got the chance."
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