Is anyone out there from Maine who can confirm something?

While looking for information on domes for ponds and trickle towers, I ran smack dab into several people who claimed it was unlawful to have koi in any type of an outside water feature in the state of Maine? I realize koi are non native fish and I fully understand the concept behind why they should never be released into any natural body of water but... did a few rotten eggs ruin it for everyone in the state of Maine?

Native 'mainuh', transplanted to VA 5 yrs ago, and I never heard of this. Had quite a few friends with water gardens and koi, maybe it's something new?

Just because one sees it on the Internet doesn't mean it's true. The problem is the source which was a mainstream pond supplier, I would presume they would know in so much as they would not be able to sell koi to residents of the state of Maine just as nurseries and sellers on eBay can't sell water hyacinth to residents of many southern states. I was sort of hoping somebody out there might know as if this is true, this is a big problem for many of us as when one state takes an environmental stand as aggressive as this... others will follow. Problem is that my fish are actually pets and I have grown attached to them. I know a few miles from me, several people dumped goldfish and koi into a 15 acre lake and it wiped out half of the native species of fish over a period of about 6 years. This is serious, I know but disallowing koi in water features (ponds) as opposed to educating the public on the damage they do when this happens??? Seriously, how many people other than ponders know the real reasons behind "why not". We are probably talking parents who bought koi for a 10 gallon tank or parents who bought 25 goldfish and no longer want to clean the tank who are probably the ones dumping the fish so now there is the potential for the people who know better to get hammered. Sort of upsets me.

Looks like strictly speaking you need a permit to stock any fish, anywhere in Maine but the penalty seems to be loss of ones fishing license? http://www.spccc.org/news/062703.html

That's no loss of a basic fishing license and I see some pretty stiff fines. Thanks for posting the link. This is not as restrictive as I had feared though. It appears it is an attempt to get people to apply for and be granted a permit BEFORE they purchase koi. Most probably the state's attempt at educating a captive audience. People are probably very receptive to what they have to say about NOT introducing exotic species into natural waterways when they want something.

Bottom line is that I realize we don't live in a perfect world and exotic species such as goldfish and koi "escape" all the time regardless of whether it is intentional or accidental. When carp are introduced to natural waterways, they wreak havoc with the environment and this is probably Maine's way of letting people know before the situation escalates to a total ban on exotic fish species. I'm ok with this. I'd rather see something being done to share with people the evils of "flush funerals" and such this way rather than punishing all the responsible people who would never tire of a fish and toss it in a creek or stream or pond or lake when they didn't want to bother maintaining it any longer. Thanks for posting that link.