Chapter 130

Section 1. In this chapter, unless the context otherwise requires, the following words shall have the following meanings and the following rules of construction shall apply: ''Angling'', fishing with hand line or rod, with naturally or artificially baited hook. ''Canned lobster m…

Section 10. A court or official authorized to issue warrants in criminal cases shall, upon a sworn complaint that the complainant believes that any fish unlawfully taken or possessed are concealed in any boat, vehicle, fish car, box, locker, crate, package, building or other part…

Section 100A. The director, with the approval of the marine fisheries advisory commission, shall, adopt rules and regulations relative to the taking, sale or possession of striped bass but in no instance shall any rule or regulation authorize the taking, sale or possession of str…

Section 100B. No person shall take, or attempt to take, with or by the use of a net, seine or any other contrivance of any kind or description, except hook and line, any striped bass within the jurisdiction of the commonwealth; provided, that it shall not be a violation of this s…

Section 100C. No person shall take, or attempt to take, with or by the use of a net, seine or any other contrivance of any kind or description, except by hook and line, any shad within the jurisdiction of the commonwealth; provided, that it shall not be a violation of this sectio…

Section 100D. No person shall take or attempt to take eels, Anguilla rostrata, by any contrivance other than by nets, pots, spears, or angling. The director is hereby authorized to establish rules and regulations governing the size, shape, mesh size, and manner of marking such ne…

Section 101A. No person shall wilfully detain, hunt, kill or injure a gray seal (halichoerus gryphus), also called a Nantucket horsehead. Whoever violates any provision of this section shall be punished by a fine not to exceed five hundred dollars.

Section 102. No person shall harvest for sale or engage in the aquaculture of marine plants except in accordance with any regulations adopted by the director and subject to a permit or written approval issued by the director.

Section 104. This chapter shall not be deemed to affect any privileges granted in any special statute relating to fisheries in any particular place, except such provisions thereof as relate to shellfish and shellfisheries, to alewife fisheries, and to those activities which are t…

Section 105. The commissioner of environmental protection may from time to time, for the purpose of promoting the public safety, health and welfare, and protecting public and private property, wildlife and marine fisheries, adopt, amend, modify or repeal orders regulating, restri…

Section 106. (a) Except as provided in this section, no person shall possess, sell, offer for sale, trade or distribute a shark fin. (b) A person who holds a license or permit to take or land sharks may separate a shark fin from a lawfully landed shark during the ordinary course …

Section 12. All fish unlawfully taken, held, possessed or dealt with contrary to any provision of this chapter or of any rule or regulation made under authority thereof, and all boats, vehicles and apparatus used therein, may, in addition to any or all of the penalties contained …

Section 13. The director, the deputy directors of enforcement, chiefs of enforcement, deputy chiefs of enforcement and all environmental police officers and deputy environmental police officers, or any member of the state police may request any person whom he has cause to believe…

Section 14. Actions and prosecutions under the laws relative to fish or marine fisheries shall, unless otherwise expressly provided, be commenced within one year after the time when the cause of action accrued or the offence was committed.

Section 15A. Any game protector, fish and game warden, coastal warden, conservation officer or other person who is empowered to make arrests for violations of the conservation or marine fishing laws of the state of New Hampshire or of the state of Rhode Island may pursue any pers…

Section 16. Any occupation under this chapter of tide waters or any work done therein, shall be subject to the pertinent provisions of chapter ninety-one.

Section 17. The director may (1) Destroy from time to time license books and stubs, licenses, permits, certificates of registration and blanks relative thereto, after the same have been properly audited by the state auditor, and such other documents as the director deems advisabl…

Section 17A. Upon petition signed by any interested party or upon his own motion, the director shall submit to the marine fisheries advisory commission proposals relating to the management of the marine fisheries. After public hearing, notice of which shall be published in a news…

Section 17B. Notwithstanding the provisions of this chapter, the director may, by issuance of a written permit under such terms and conditions as he may impose, authorize the possession and taking of fish at any season and of any size for purposes of propagation, rearing, harvest…

Section 17C. (a) The director shall establish a state recreational saltwater fishing permit program to comply with the state exemption requirements of section 401 (g)(2) of the Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, 16 USC 1881 (g)(2) and may promulgate regulat…

Section 17D. Whoever violates section 17C, or any rule or regulation made under authority thereof, shall be punished by a fine per offense as promulgated by the director. All funds received by the commonwealth under this section shall be deposited in the Marine Recreational Fishe…

Section 18. No person shall, without right, enter in or upon any building or other structure or any area of land, flats or water, set apart and used by or under authority of the director for conducting scientific experiments or investigations or for the propagation or protection …

Section 19. For the purpose of providing suitable passage for salt water fish coming into fresh water to spawn, the director or some person thereunto authorized by him in writing, may (1) seize and remove, summarily if need be, at the expense of the owner using and maintaining th…

Section 1A. The division of marine fisheries shall be within the department in the executive office of environmental affairs and shall be under the administrative supervision of a director who shall be called the director of marine fisheries. The director of the division of marin…

Section 1B. There shall be in the division of marine fisheries a commission to be known as the marine fisheries advisory commission hereinafter called the commission, which shall consist of nine members, qualified in the field of marine fisheries by training and experience, to be…

Section 1C. There shall be established in the division of marine fisheries a shellfish advisory panel to: (i) advise the director on matters of concern relevant to shellfish fisheries; (ii) provide a forum for governmental entities to receive and disseminate information relevant …

Section 2. Licenses, permits and certificates of registration issued by the director or his agent shall not, except as otherwise provided in this chapter, be transferable and shall be produced for examination upon demand of any authorized person. Notwithstanding the foregoing, th…

Section 20. The director shall assist and co-operate with coastal cities and towns for the purpose of increasing the supply of shellfish and exterminating the enemies thereof within their borders, and for this purpose may expend such sums as may be appropriated therefor. The expe…

Section 20A. The director shall assist and cooperate with coastal cities and towns for the purpose of establishing and maintaining a program of self-help to said cities and towns for the cultivation, propagation and protection of shellfish. Funds to carry out the purposes of this…

Section 21. The director shall devise a system of statistical information useful to the commercial and recreational fishing industry of the commonwealth and may collect and compile fishery statistics obtained thereunder. He may require for such purposes statistical reporting from…

Section 23. Except in the case of emergency imperiling life or property or an unavoidable accident or except in accordance with the terms of a permit issued pursuant to state or federal water pollution control laws, no person shall, from any source: (i) put, throw, discharge or s…

Section 24. Whoever, contrary to any provision of section twenty-three, himself, or by his agent or servant, does, or allows or suffers to be done, any act causing damage to the shellfish resources within the limits of a city or town shall be liable to said city or town in tort, …

Section 25. The entrance or discharge into the coastal waters, or the tributaries of such waters, of sewage or any other substance which might be injurious to the public health or might tend to contaminate any shellfish areas or shellfish therein which may be determined by the di…

Section 26. The supreme judicial court or any justice thereof, and the superior court or any justice thereof, shall have jurisdiction in equity to enforce sections twenty-three, twenty-four and twenty-five. Proceedings to enforce the same may be instituted and prosecuted by the a…

Section 27. Whoever, contrary to any provision of section twenty-five, himself, or by his agent or servant, permits the entrance or discharge into or on any part of said coastal waters or tributaries of such waters, sewage, heated effluent, or any other substance injurious to pub…

Section 28. The proprietors of lands upon which a pond is created and maintained by excavating and enclosing the same and by the artificial flowing of same with coastal waters, for the purpose of cultivating and maintaining fish thereon, shall have the exclusive rights to cultiva…

Section 29. The aldermen or city council of a city or the selectmen of a town lying upon coastal waters may, in writing, and upon blanks, supplied by the director, authorize any person to construct weirs, pound nets or fish traps in tidewater in locations where no harbor lines ex…

Section 3. Whoever loses or by mistake or accident destroys a license, permit or certificate issued under any provision of this chapter may, upon application to the director, accompanied by a fee of three dollars and an affidavit setting forth the circumstances of said loss, rece…

Section 30. Any person who constructs or maintains any weir, pound net or fish trap after having received written approval therefor as provided in section twenty-nine shall at all times while such structure is maintained have the same plainly marked with the number of such approv…

Section 31. No person shall, without the consent of the owner, take, use, destroy, injure or molest fishing gear. The division, with the approval of the marine fisheries advisory commission and the department, shall promulgate regulations that may authorize or permit the removal …

Section 33. The owner of every boat, and the owner of every pound net, fish trap, weir, fyke net or similar contrivance, fishing pier, seine, drag or gill net, lobster or crab pot or trap or other fishing gear, hereinafter referred to as devices, used for fishing purposes, and ev…

Section 34. Between March 15 and June 15, inclusive, no person shall catch or take any smelt from the waters of the commonwealth or buy, receive, sell or offer or expose for sale, transport or possess a smelt so taken. Any wholesale or retail dealer who sells, offers or exposes f…

Section 35. No person shall take or attempt to take a smelt in any other manner than by angling. This section shall not apply to smelt inadvertently taken in a seine or net during the time and in the manner in which fishing is allowed for perch, herring or alewives; provided, how…

Section 36. For the purpose of protecting smelt and their spawn the director may close such portions of streams flowing into the coastal waters during the spawning season of such fish as he may deem necessary and may forbid the entrance into such portions of said streams by posti…

Section 37. No person, either as principal, agent or employee, shall at any time catch lobsters or edible crabs in, or take them from, the coastal waters or place, set, keep, maintain, supervise, lift, raise or draw in or from the said waters, or cause to be placed, set, kept, ma…

Section 37A. Any person may take green crabs, more specifically known as the species Carcinides Maenas, provided, that such person (a) gives written notice to such effect to the director, (b) marks all traps, gear and buoys in a uniform manner in accordance with requirements set …

Section 38. A person shall not fish for or take lobsters or edible crabs in coastal waters or land the same in the commonwealth without a permit issued by the director or his agent. A noncommercial lobster and crab permit shall authorize the holder and the members of holder's imm…

Section 38A. No person or persons shall take or attempt to take, by diving, lobsters, or edible crabs from the coastal waters, unless he displays his lobster license number upon his air tank, and for each person diving alone or for each group of divers upon the surface of said wa…

Section 38B. All applicants issued a commercial fishermen permit for the taking of lobsters in coastal waters shall document their catch and sale of lobsters at such times and upon such forms as may be determined by the director. Individual catch data so documented shall be confi…

Section 39. No person shall tend, lift, raise or draw a lobster or crab pot or trap, or take lobsters or edible crabs from such a pot or trap, or catch or take lobsters from the coastal waters by any means, except during the period from one half hour before sunrise until one half…