Gar Legality in California

[groovitudedude]

I'm not planning on getting any gars, but it has come to my attention that certain species of gars are illegal in California. Can you guys post pictures of the type of gars that are illegal, or direct me to a page with pictures and/or info on them? I think that there's a LFS around where I live that has some...... uh.... interesting finds.

PS: Sorry if someone else posted this topic, I tried to look through the gar forums for one.

 

[Polypterus]

Primitivefishes
See the above link... All of these fish are Illegal in Cali...

The Pike Characins, Asian / amazonian Needlefish and Pikeheads sometimes erroneously called gars are not regulated at this time.

Belonesox which is a livebearer is regulated and Illegal...

Key definitions of a Gar (Lepisosteid) are the Nostrils are at the end of a long snout. Thick Rhombic ganoid scales (present above 6 cm) and up turned Heterocercal tail ( the vertebrate extends to the upper tail) that is rounded and not forked... Any fish with these three traits that is labeled as a gar is Illegal...

The family Lepisosteidae (Gars) contains two genus and seven species:

Genus Atractosteus:
Atractosteus spatula Alliagator gar or Catan
A. tristoechus Cuban gar or Manjuari
A. tropicus Tropical gar or Pejelargarto

Genus Lepisosteus:
Lepisosteus osseus longnosed gar
L. platostomus Shortnosed gar
L. oculatus Spotted gar
L. platyrhincus Florida gar

 

[xander]

If you own a gar in a state where it's not legal, don't be an idiot and post pictures of it, say you have one for sale or say you want to buy one.

Heck, you shouldn't even have one or be looking for one in the first place.

Because if you do, you could be the next star of the lessons learned forum.