MINA -- It was July 10, 2003, when the Nevada Division of Wildlife raided Bob Eddie's crayfish farm in Mina, poisoning what he said was $1 million worth of product.

Eddie, who put up humorous signs on Highway 95 warning of a lobster crossing, said he sold the Australian red claw crayfish he raised for $14 per pound.

Nevada Assemblyman Ed Goedhart, R-Amargosa Valley, said he was trying to right a past wrong when he introduced a bill draft request in the 2009 Legislature to review the regulations, transfering oversight from NDOW to the Nevada Department of Agriculture and classifying the Australian red claw crayfish as "alternative livestock."

Goedhart noted Eddie never received any compensation for his loss when the "jackbooted folks" landed by helicopter and poisoned his crop.

Goedhart said the chairman of the Assembly Natural Resources, Agriculture and Mining Committee Jerry Claborn, D-Las Vegas, refused to even hear the bill.

"It would allow it to be regulated by the Department of Agriculture, which would make it easier for him to stay in business," Goedhart said.

Instead, Goedhart said, he'll work through administrative channels instead of the legislature.

"I was selling them to people. They'd buy a pound or two pounds, most of them would come to the trailer park, cook them and eat them," Eddie said. "The only thing I wanted to do was anything raised for human consumption come under the Department of Agriculture, not Fish and Game."

Eddie said the crayfish can't survive in water cooler than 50 degrees. It made an alternative to raising cattle, he said -- a retail business as opposed to a wholesale business like ranching, where a rancher, after paying for feed, could make only $20 on selling beef.

"I just want them to leave me alone. I don't want nothing. Let me raise them and let me serve them to the people who want to eat. I could see if I sold them to somebody who was going to take them and raise them, they would need a license. I understand that. But what I don't understand is when I sell them to people who want to eat them," Eddie said.

NDOW Public Information Officer Chris Healy said his department tried to work with Eddie.

"We can permit aquaculture of it as long as people agree to abide by various stipulations in a permit," Healy said, "like they wouldn't be able to leave the premises live, and the main reason is it's an evasive species. If introduced in certain drainages where water temperatures are correct, it could cause some problems with native species, and that's the reason why it's tightly regulated. We tried to work with Mr. Eddie and got nowhere as far as his cooperation."

"People tried to paint it as big, bad government going after one person where in reality we did all we could to try to issue a permit Mr. Eddie could live by. He didn't see his way to try to abide by it," Healy said.

Healy compared the possible impacts to elk ranching. In the past there was a push to set up elk ranches. Nevada decided not to allow them, but other states did.

"Nevada is now one of the few states that does not have chronic wasting disease that was caused by elk ranching," Healy said. "If we were to allow Mr. Eddie to raise live crayfish and someone drops them into places they don't belong, we wouldn't be doing our job of protecting native species of fish."