ALERT: Florida Blackbanded Sunfish Added to List of Candidate Species. State Listing and Possession Ban Pending

At the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) first quarter Commissioners Meeting in Tallahassee on February 5th, FWC staff recommended listing the Blackbanded Sunfish (Enneacanthus chaetodon) as a state-listed species. The commissioners followed staff recommendation and voted to add the species to the list of candidate species, standard procedure when considering a species for state listing status. Species on the candidate species list are prohibited from collection, but possession is allowed. The species will now be considered for final listing at an FWC Commissioners Meeting in the future. If this occurs, possession of the species, even captive-bred and long-term captive specimens, will be prohibited. The Blackbanded Sunfish has a wide range from New Jersey to northern Florida and is a popular species with U.S. native fish keepers. The species is historically significant as one of the first widely available aquarium fish, dating back to the early 1900s to the birth of the modern hobby in the United States.