Maine Today, among others, has this story about a Maine restaurant owner who had his koi (Cyprinus carpio) confiscated after someone snitched on him. While the koi had been living in a tank in the restaurant for more than a decade, Maine made the possession or import of koi illegal a few years ago (if anyone can point me to the regulation or statute for this I would appreciate it!). While this story leans heavily on the purported innocence of the perpetrator, it seems like someone used to dealing with things like health inspections should not have assumed the Maine Warden Service was a joke. Some of the details of the case are also not clear in the article, such as how the owner could be charged with "importing freshwater fish without a permit" if he purchased the fish prior to the state ban.
The confiscated fish, for those interested, were transported to a pet store in New Hampshire that has agreed to let the owner buy them back. He'll be sending them off to crazy liberal koi-loving Massachusetts, of course :-).
1 comment:
This whole story is crazy. What's next, arrest cat owners because their pet has killed a sparrow?
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