Illinois Officials Unveil Plan to Reintroduce Alligator Gar

Illinois officials have released detailed plans for how they'll reintroduce a giant fish that was thought to be extinct from the state's waters.

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources announced Monday that it's published a management plan for alligator gar, which includes goals and objectives.

The alligator gar is described as a toothy giant that can grow longer than a horse and heavier than a refrigerator, a fearsome-looking prehistoric fish that plied U.S. waters from the Gulf of Mexico to Illinois until it disappeared from many states a half-century ago.

Last fall, Illinois officials stocked about 1,600 alligator gar, an animal whose head resembles an alligator and has two rows of needlelike teeth.

Biologists are restocking the fish in several states and some hope that it might be a weapon against Asian carp, an invasive species.

The fish is the second largest freshwater fish in North America, after the white sturgeon.

Illinois officials said in a news release that the last known catch before the reintroduction effort was in 1966 in southern Illinois' Cache River basin. It was about 130 pounds and seven feet long.