AUGUSTA – Maine doesn’t need to ban the sale or possession of snakehead fish. It already did that years ago.

Peter Bourque said he chuckled Wednesday when he learned that conservationists from the National Audubon Society had asked Maine to ban snakeheads.

“I got a good laugh out of it. Maine is pretty well buttoned up in terms of importation of fish and wildlife species. We even have prohibition on minnows,” said Bourque, director of Fisheries for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

On Wednesday, Bourque, who was in a meeting, received a message to contact a society conservationist requesting that Maine ban the aggressive, invasive species.

“Two or three years ago, there was a news story that snakeheads had been found then in Maine, but they’ve never been in Maine, even though the U.S. Fish and Wildlife reported it in a news release,” Bourque said.

Intrigued, he and others tracked the news release back several years.

“We learned that one snakehead was brought into Maine in an aquarium, and the person dumped it in a river in York County back in the 70s,” he said.

Maine’s species’ importation law states that acceptable species of tropical fish and wildlife that may be brought into the state without an importation permit shall be designated by the department commissioner.

The list of such species is maintained and made available by the department. On Jan. 1, it is updated annually.

The statute further adds that the acceptability of such species to be imported or possessed must be based on an informed determination by the commissioner.

That decision, Bourque said, is based on the fact that the species won’t cause an unreasonable risk to indigenous species, or their habitats, or pose other dangers to the natural community, in captivity or, if accidentally or intentionally released into the wild.

A Wildlife or Fish Importation permit is still required for any species not named on the list as “unrestricted” by the commissioner.

Maine’s lengthy regulations for possession of wildlife in captivity, and to the importation of wildlife from areas outside the state, can be found at www.state.me.us/ifw/wildlife/wildlifeincaptivity.htm.