DEC to kill man's illegal snakehead fish

[Sledgstone 8,672]

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf?/base/news-17/1235642273151050.xml&coll=1

Time has run out for a Clay man's pet snakehead fish.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation Wednesday rejected appeals from the banned fish's owner to spare the 10-year-old, 28-inch-long giant snakehead.

Chris Deverso, the fish's owner, said DEC officers will pick up the fish today.

"I've done everything I can possibly do," he said. "They're going to kill my fish."

Snakeheads have been illegal to own in the United States since 2004. Deverso purchased the fish he calls Rocky legally in 1999, before the ban.

The invasive species, origi-

nally from Asia, has a voracious appetite, often consuming all other fish in a lake or pond, and even eating its young. It can also slither across land, staying out of water for up to three days, to find new sources of food.

Deverso has been trying to convince the state his fish is not a threat to Central New York waterways.

His main argument: His type of snakehead can't survive in our cold climate. He's also found one state, Maryland, that amended its law to allow people to own snakehead like his and others that would die in cold water.

"The DEC says it doesn't have the power to give me a permit to keep the fish," he said. "A state senator couldn't help. It's not like I can call (President) Obama and ask him to give my fish a pardon."

DEC Region 7 Capt. Woody Erickson said Wednesday that after reviewing the case, the DEC determined the ban on snakeheads does not distinguish among the different species.

"It'd be very difficult for the department to distinguish these species of fish and which can and can't be kept," Erickson said. "This has risen to the highest levels of the DEC."

DEC officers are working with the owner to determine a time that's convenient to pick up the fish. "We're sensitive to the situation. This fish was a pet," he said.

The fish will be taken to a DEC facility and placed in a walk-in freezer, Erickson said. The fish's metabolism will slow and it will die.

The fish will be frozen because the owner wants to consider sending it to a taxidermist, he said.

Deverso earlier this month pleaded guilty in Clay town court to possessing an illegal fish. He met Tuesday with DEC Region 7 Director Ken Lynch and Erickson. The meeting was arranged by Sen. John DeFrancisco.

Deverso showed them documents that his fish is a subtropical fish that can't live in cold water. He also showed them the Maryland law that bans only two of the 29 species of snakeheads - northern and blotted snakeheads - because they're the only two that can survive in cold water.

Deverso has contacted zoos and aquariums, including the Rosamond Gifford Zoo at Burnet Park in Syracuse. No one local is willing to take the fish.

Now, he's just waiting for the DEC to take the fish.

"It's really sad," Deverso said. "There's no reason this fish has to be killed."

This came out in the local news here weeks ago, since then there was a somewhat public outcry to not kill the guy's fish. Theres still debate on whether it'll still die or not and the guy is raising money for lawyers or something by selling Rocky the Snakehead Fish t-shirts.

You can see more pics of him if you google for it.

Now, after reading the article, take into account all the sci-fi movies about snakehead killer fish and tell us if you think the fish should be killed... or allowed to live.

[Ladywriter 7,783]

poor Rocky

[Kite 3,263]

it is a freeking fish, let the poor thing live,

we wipe out enough animals per day imo

and it is really a nice looking fish

[Serena 12]

Should let the fish be, after all it'd die in the cold so there isn't really anything to fret over. Besides it'll probably die naturally soon enough anyhow.

[Ladywriter 7,783]

It cant survive in the cold here even if he threw it into a lake

and if he did something that retarded he'd be killed because every environmentalist in the area knows what he looks like

mwahaha