Bowing to pressure from pet retailers and pet owners who protested a proposed state ban on possessing any kind of snakehead fish, Maryland officials are modifying a regulation that would have made it illegal to own snakehead fish in the state.

Under the new proposal, residents would be prohibited only from owning the varieties of snakeheads that can survive in Maryland waters, Mike Slattery, assistant secretary at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, told the Herald-Mail.

The original ban had been slated to take effect in September and would have prohibited state residents from owning northern snakeheads and 28 other species of the Asian fish. Live snakeheads could be kept only with a DNR permit.

Federal law already prohibits the importation and interstate trade of all species of the fish. It also is illegal to introduce the fish into a state waterway.

The DNR withdrew the original ban after reviewing complaints made by pet owners and pet retailers at a public hearing in July.

Retailer Ruth Hanessian, president of the Maryland Association of Pet Industries, was one of several retailers who testified that it was unfair to include the other 28 species in the regulation and to criminalize responsible owners.

The DNR will try to determine which fish are hardy enough to survive in Maryland waters. The northern snakehead still will be banned under the modified law.

The northern snakehead has been found in two Maryland ponds as well as the Potomac River and its tributaries. Officials have circulated wanted posters for the northern snakehead throughout the state, asking fishermen who come across the fish to kill it, then report their catch to authorities.

The fish also have been found in Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, California and Massachusetts. [October 2004 PET AGE]