The fish was supposed to be a bluegill. Seamus Coffey, eight years old, was working a micro-rod baited with frozen shrimp at Ridley Park Lake on Saturday 8 August while his father Mike fished for catfish nearby. Around 9am something took the shrimp that fought harder than a panfish should.
Mike told the Delaware County Daily Times he was talking his son through it: "He's reeling it in. I said, 'slow down you don't want to lose this. It looks like a huge bluegill or sunfish.'"
Seamus had already decided otherwise. "I'm reeling it in, and I think there's a bass," he told 6abc Philadelphia.
Both were wrong. "I was like, 'Oh, this is a bluegill, I don't know what this is,'" Mike said. "And he said, 'It's a piranha!'"
"Because I watch YouTube!" he said when asked how he knew.
He had it right. Mike Parker, communications director at the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, was initially careful, telling the Daily Times from photographs that "it's not something I would want to put my thumb in. It's clearly not native." Agency biologists then confirmed the identification. "Our biologists have confirmed that this is some species of piranha," Parker said.
It measured around nine inches and weighed roughly two pounds. The Coffeys are catch-and-release anglers, but this one did not go back. "So we ended up getting rid of it, humanely," Mike said. Parker said that was the correct call. On Facebook, quoted by People, Mike summed the morning up: "At this point you can't put anything past Seamus. Today he caught a 2lb red belly piranha out of the Ridley Park Lake! Of all things."
What interests the commission is the release rather than the catch. Red-belly piranhas are widely kept in home aquariums, and Parker said the agency believes an owner who had tired of it put this one in the lake. He argues the practice is bad for the animal before it is bad for the lake.
"I think a lot of times people have a dream: I want to own an exotic fish or a snake or an alligator, and it's cute when it's small. But maybe they can't afford that or house it anymore, and they decide maybe this is someone else's problem," he said.
"It's a lifelong responsibility for many of these species [...] And people quickly tire of that and decide the best thing to do for this animal would be to go throw it in the river, go throw it in a pond. That is probably the worst thing you can do for an animal that's been a pet."
Mike Coffey put the ecological case more bluntly. "People when they want to get rid of them, put them into lakes and you destroy an ecosystem," he said.
A lone tropical fish in a Pennsylvania lake is unlikely to become a population. Parker said one released fish has little chance of spreading, and that a piranha would not last long in local conditions anyway. Repeat releases are the real risk. He uses goldfish as the ordinary example - a couple won at a carnival, tipped into a pond, and then:
"A few years later someone catches this fish and there are a bunch. They are not supposed to be there. We have regulations about managing fish and wildlife. There are no seasons, or sizes or limits for these non-natives. All they do is disrupt the native fish."
Anyone tempted to empty a tank into the nearest water should know where the law sits. "Even if the law says that you're allowed to own an exotic pet [...] you're not allowed to introduce that species into the wilds of Pennsylvania. So that is unlawful. You can be fined, prosecuted," Parker said.
The commission does not think more piranhas are swimming in Ridley Park Lake, but it wants to hear about it if any are caught. Seamus was not remotely put off by the teeth. "Fishing is my favorite thing," he said.
"We've had some crazy fishing experiences," Mike added, "but that's definitely number one."