Thanks Tracy and Mfitz. There's the tiny off chance that if I made some great habitat (tons of rock and vegetation), some crayfish from the creek about 0.5 mile downstream would eventually find the pond on their own, and that would be legal... But obviously I can't base my pond's forage base on that little hope.
This is the only case where I've found PA's regulations to "restrict my freedom" or really bother me, so I shouldn't complain, and Tracy I'm sure you'd be welcome here, unless your idea of fun is setting off bottle rockets in the middle of a crowded Walmart. The crayfish restriction is because they're terrified of invasive species like Rusties which have already started to overpower some native species, so I get the reasoning for making the law, it was just a stroke of brilliance on the politicians' part to outlaw all species, including the native species they want to preserve... So, they won't even let us help fight the problem by stocking natives from an approved hatchery (whose species ID has been confirmed by DNR)...
