The case of the captive koi: Maine and New Hampshire, live free or…
I’m not sure whether anyone else would read this article and think, “That’s the difference between New Hampshire and Maine.” But I did.
You may have already heard this fish story about the ones that got away—and were returned. It occurred in Freeport, Maine (proud home of the never-closing LL Bean, for all of you who’ve never been to New England).
The state of Maine had confiscated ten koi, a variety of carp that Cuong Ly, Vietnamese emigrant and owner of the China Rose, had put on display in the restaurant’s aquarium tank.
No doubt you’ve seen such fish before, ornamentals that are often featured in Chinese art. I just happen to have a photo at hand, from a trip to—of all places—Buenos Aires. It was taken at feeding time at a park featuring a pond brimful of the voracious lovelies:
So what was the problem with Ly’s ten fish, safe in their tank at the China Rose? Koi, if released, threaten native fish, and Maine has a law against doing so.
Of course, Ly never had any intention of releasing his fish, but the state was worried anyway–as though Maine has nothing else to worry about, such as the fact that it’s experiencing a constant drain of young people due to lack of business oppotunities and high taxation, not to mention the weather. But yes, it’s a beautiful state.
The Maine koi concern was about some sort of accidental release, or perhaps theft of the fish and then a release–although why someone would steal a fish in order to release it is a bit obscure.
Ly went through quite a battle with the state to regain his fish, incurring expenses of $20,000. But now the koi are back at home in Freeport, complete with a lock on their tank and a sign informing patrons that possession of such fish without a permit is illegal in Maine.
What was the state ruling that Ly was fighting? Maine had initially allowed him to keep the fish, but only if they were not displayed, and a microchip was planted in each so they could be tracked if released.
Now, I understand the dangers that introducing a new species can pose to an ecosystem, and I’m not making light of them. After all, the dandelion, a personal non-favorite, was purposely brought here by early Europeans. And anyone who visits New England in August can see that purple loosestrife, although quite lovely, has taken over the wetland areas, causing problems.
But Maine, please use some common sense! Somehow your neighbor New Hampshire has managed to get along without a similar law. During the long legal battle, Ly kept his fish at a pet store right across the border in New Hampshire. Nevertheless, New Hampshire’s ecosystem managed to survive, and the fish remained there safely even without microchips or electronic ankle bracelets.
You might think that all New England states are more or less alike. But they most definitely are not.
New Hampshire has long had a libertarian streak: witness its license plates that still sport the state motto, “LIVE FREE OR DIE” despite several attempts to change that fact. New Hampshire was the first of all the states to declare independence, and the first state to have a constitution (ratified six months before the Declaration of Independence). Maine, on the other hand, was part of Massachusetts for a long time, only joining the Union as the 23rd state, in 1820.
Nowadays the differences are lessening, as both states have become more Democratic, with the growth of their urban areas and the influx of liberal people from “away”—often, Massachusetts. But it’s no accident that Maine has one of the highest tax burdens in the country, whereas New Hampshire is known for its low taxes. Take a look if you don’t believe me. Maine is an unproud first, New Hampshire a proud forty-ninth.
As for the koi, fortunately they haven’t heard of the New Hampshire motto. They may not be living free, but they’re not dying, either. As Ly says:
I’m sure [the koi are] happy to be back…They can’t talk, but I can represent them. It’s a happy day today.
You are an elitist.
I’ll be you have never written about herring or sprats with the same sensitivity.
The full statement that NH’s motto is from is “Live Free or die. Death is not the worst of evils.” I can see where someone from Vietnam might understand that.
Don’t even get me started on Vermont.
I also spent considerable time in both Maine & New Hampshire during my military service, and made many treks to Salisbury Beach and Boston in search of fun & frolic. Having been exposed to the people in all three states, it was pretty amazing to me that they were so different.
I’m glad to see that NH is still a relatively libertarian state. I noticed even before I left, lo those many years ago, that many people from Mass. were moving there to escape taxation. I was afraid they were bringing their voting patterns with them, thereby electing politicians who would raise their taxes, negating their reasons for moving there in the first place.
Congrats on your new site. I recently saw a favorable review of WordPress in one of the computer mags, and it looks like you’ve made a good choice.
Cap\’n Billy:
Oh, they have brought their voting habits with them. Nashua may as well be Mass-North, and I fear Manchester is not far behind.
We flipped Democrat somewheres about 2000. The first Democrat Govenor in many years was the first hint I suppose. It’s all downhill from here. If we don’t have a state income tax within the next 10 years I’ll be rather shocked.
I’m a Mass transplant myself, but I knew why I was coming here, and it wasn’t to bring Mass with me.
^_^
What happened to PETA, Neo? I thought they were for animal rights… they need to get off their arse and actually do something productive… if that isn’t too much to ask of those preserving the human rights of animals.
My condolences, MrPeach. After my stay in New England I lived in various places across the U. S., such as Kansas, Missouri, and California before I retired back to my home state, a very red southern one. However, we are experiencing a lot of immigration from blue America, as well as more of the illegal kind from south of the border, so I suspect they will also bring their voting habits with them. It probably won’t matter much to me, according to the actuarial tables.
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Yes. Maine is a weird place, beautiful but weird. It’s an economic basketcase–oppressive taxation, no jobs, no opportunity for the young, a demographic cleansing of the coastal areas because native Mainers can’t afford to live in their own homes anymore, yet there’s money in the state budget for a department of multi-culturalism. If it wasn’t so pathetic it’d be funny.
A typical story about Mainiacs. Btw, “Tax Free or Die” would be more accurate slogan for New Hampshire.
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Excellent post!
Matt
I must say that since I started driving to Maine every summer to visit my kids at their sleepaway camp, I have become somewhat cynical about New Hampshire’s image as a low-tax haven. Why? Because New Hampshire imposes a toll on the whopping 11-mile stretch of Interstate 95 that passes along its coast, generating massive delays for drivers, most of whom are from out of state. They don’t seem to mind collecting revenue from non-NH residents in an incredibly annoying, time consuming fashion. I have waited 30 minutes to pay the toll at times. (At least now they have started using EZ Pass.) I have vowed never to spend money in NH if I can avoid it.
Actually, I can easily see it happening. Some immature teenager gets it in their head that they want a fish like that, the owner has too many anyways, is somehow mistreating them, planning to eat them, etc. and steals one, intending to care for it. Then it turns out to be too much trouble to care for, or taking care of it gets boring. Since the kid can’t return it without confessing to a crime, and they don’t want to kill it or let it die, they instead just release it into the wild, thinking they’re doing nature a favor.
Since it’s impossible to convince every teen that what they want to believe is wrong (in fact, just convincing a single teen of such a thing by any means other than letting them put themselves in the hospital through their own stupidity is a nearly impossible task, and not even guaranteed then), the easiest way to prevent such ecology-destroying stupidity is to make stealing the fish too difficult for any but the hardcore criminals to accomplish (and hope the PETA morons don’t take it as a direct challenge).
Sounds like personal liberty is in the tank in Maine. They’ve been sold down the river.
Hardy har har har.
Steven: absolutely correct, re the NH tolls. The state has no reluctance to collect money from visitors. With EZ pass, though, it’s much better.
I wrote this post a while back about the New England states’ propensity to confuse all visitors. As you can see, Maine is certainly no exception.
PETA has been known to steal animals to release. A few years ago (locally) they had a fundraiser to purchase live Maine lobsters, bought a bunch, then stole some (didn’t get as much money as they expected), and drove to the coast and released them.
Seeing that I live in Tennessee and they released cold water Maine lobsters into the gulf of Mexico I’m not so sure they were better off with what PETA did (and made them look kinda stupid) – but it does happen.
There have been several southern waterways that got similar species released (Tilapia in much of Texas – at least they are tasty).
It does leave a difficult issue in that it takes very very few to do it. Unfortunately this guy isn’t going to be one that releases them and it sucks what was being done to him, but do they write a law that singles him out as an exception? What if he dies and his kids go “live free little fishies”. Pretty much what caused several non-native animals to get out of control.
Many states are passing similar laws because it *has* caused major upheaval in other states. Tennessee has some very strict laws about having Tilapia because of what happened in Texas.
You mean people’s civil rights are being given up to protect against animal rights terrorism?
The fish and game idiots spent thousands of tax dollars persecuting the guy. Then, in the end they did what they could have done in the first place; issued a permit with a singular condition – put a sign on the fish tank saying the fish cannot be released to the wild.
I’m a Mainiac, and even I can see the stupidity in this.
MrPeach is spot on. New York moved into VT, now very blue; Massachusetts moved into NH, now quite purple.
Steven, Exit 1, Rte 107 to Rte 1, north to Ocean Rd, west back to 95. Pretty. Picturesque. Several decent family restaurants. It is 10 minutes longer, but you get that Yankee satisfaction of avoiding the toll. (If you’re coming 101, take Rte 33).
AVI: Thanks for the directions. Maybe I’ll try that this summer. What we’ve actually done a couple of times is get off at exit 1 and then head to the north side of 95, working our way up Route 108 to Dover, then on into Maine on Route 4, staying on 4 all the way up to Portland (stopping for ice cream at Shain’s in Sanford, of course). It’s a pretty drive much of the time.
Good God, they were in a tank, indoors for pete’s sake. Are they unaware in Maine that in other parts of the country where there’s great green influence (my California, unfortunately) people have Koi in OUTDOOR ponds!! You don’t even need careless teenagers when a butterfingered (or taloned) Heron would do. (Yes, I actually know someone who saw a Heron swoop down and swipe his Koi, and they ain’t cheap. Also why it’s unlikely that Tatters fears would come true).
Sheesh.
cnn.comI grew up in Langdon NH, POP 400, and it was as rock ribbed Republican as the fields we farmed. If you look at the county by county maps of the 2004 elections you will see it is the remote rural part of the state that voted Democratic and the south east – full of those city folks escaping Taxachusetts – that voted Republican. I live in Perth western Australia now and some of you saying that it was the newcomers who brought their voting habits may know things I don’t. Still, it looks to me that the city folks are voting R and the country folks D. jhttp://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/president/
The state by state county maps can be accessed right under the national map at this page. This is just for president and may be misleading, and the trend to Democratic is is there when you look at the 2000 presidential map.
sos.nh.govTo yankeewombat:
[As I look at the “preview” function, I see that WordPress is messing up the links by putting part of them ahead of the comment. Strange glitch. I’ll try to get that fixed–in the meantime, please bear with it. I just tried to edit the glitch out of my comment, but it didn’t work. Wow, that’s quite a stubborn glitch.]
The CNN maps are not detailed enough. here is a more detailed breakdown, by counties and by wards within each county. It makes tedious reading, but it is very clear that, with few exceptions, the more rural parts of the state were for Bush and the southern cities for Kerry. Other factors were at play, as well.
The southeast county that went Republican (Rockingham), only did so because of a strong Bush vote in the more rural parts of the county. Nashua, the most Massachusetts-influenced city of all, was strongly Kerry. Manchester slightly in favor of Bush; it’s much less populated by Massachusetts exiles than Nashua is. In many other parts of the state the southern cities (that’s where all the “cities” are, pretty much) went for Kerry. Most of those cities also are near universities, which contain a lot of people “from away.” I seem to recall that in NH university students are allowed to vote there as though they live there.
Effing bureaucracts. They deserve snakeheads instead of goldfish.
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Interesting information thanks for writing
That bureaucracy for you!
The rules exist to cover the few ‘dangerous’ situations- but they need to realise there are situations where they do not apply!
Well that wasn’t very nice of the athorities. I understand the concern but still. I live in New Brunswick, right across the border and we have koi fish in just about every Asian restaurant, heck my wife and I went to an Indian restaurant for our anniversary and they had a big tank with Koi in it.
Are you able to explain to me just what the largest snake is, my brother thinks it is really a boa constrictor.