Where is the madagascar hissing cockroach legal?

The introduction into Hawaii of live animals or live non-domestic animals as defined in this chapter is only allowed: (1) For those animals on the list designated as conditionally approved and dated November 28, 2006, or on the list designated as restricted entry, dated September 25, 2018

Hawaii runs an inverted rule, and this is the clause that creates it. Introduction is allowed only for animals on the conditionally approved or restricted lists, so an animal on none of them is barred by default rather than left unregulated. Hawaii's insect entries across all three lists are a short list of named species, the mealworm, the pomace fly, the honey bee, a green bottle blow fly, a parasitic wasp and a few butterflies. The Madagascar hissing cockroach is on none of them, and on an island chain that quarantines insects harder than anywhere else in the country that absence is decisive. Absence from the lists here is a ban, not a gap.

How this rule works: The rule text the three species lists hang off, and the part that explains why Hawaii answers differently from everywhere else. Two things matter. § 4-71-6.5 allows introduction only for animals on the conditionally approved or restricted lists, which is what makes an unlisted animal barred by default rather than unregulated. And § 4-71-2 defines a set of domestic animals, the European rabbit among them, then says that as used in the chapter the word animal means non-domestic animal, so the lists never reach those species at all.

Any species of live non-domesticated animal not currently on the species importation list will be designated group IV until such time as another determination is made by the director.

The Madagascar hissing cockroach is not on the Director's list, and neither is any other terrestrial invertebrate: the roughly 1,300 rows are mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish. Read literally the default clause would designate it group IV and bar it, since it is a live non-domesticated animal. Read in context that looks wrong, because the rule is titled importation of live non-domesticated animals, birds and fish, its scope speaks of wildlife species, and its machinery is veterinary inspection certificates and disease testing built for vertebrates. The regulation never uses the word invertebrate. Recorded unclear rather than banned, because the definition arguably reaches the animal and plainly was not written with it in mind.

How this rule works: The roughly 1,300 row table that 19.35.7 NMAC points at and that earlier research could not obtain. Every row gives a family, a scientific name, a common name and a roman numeral group. Group I is semi-domesticated and needs no importation permit. Group II is not known to be invasive or dangerous and needs a permit. Group III presents minimal or manageable concerns and needs a permit with specific provisions attached. Group IV is prohibited to the general public. The list is reached from the download page rather than a direct file URL, and the site needs a User-Agent header.