Chapter 131

Section 31. The director is authorized to issue permits for the operation of commercial shooting preserves. Any person desiring to operate a commercial shooting preserve shall make application therefor on forms to be furnished by the director. The director may, upon receipt of a …

Section 32. Unless otherwise specified, all licenses, permits and certificates issued under any provision of this chapter shall expire at twelve midnight on December thirty-first next succeeding the effective date of such license, permit or certificate. Such licenses, permits and…

Section 33. A person shall not alter, forge or counterfeit any license, permit, permit application, certificate, tag or seal issued under any provisions of this chapter or any rule or regulation made under authority thereof, nor possess or use any such altered, forged or counterf…

Section 34. A license, permit or certificate issued pursuant to this chapter, except a license issued under clause (3), (4) or (6) of the seventh paragraph of section 23, and held by a person found guilty of, convicted of, assessed in any manner after a plea of nolo contendere or…

Section 35. The provisions of section thirty-four, except as hereinafter provided, shall not apply to any holder of a sporting, hunting, fishing or trapping license who violates section twelve in that he fails to carry such license on his person and wear it in a visible manner on…

Section 36. A person shall not fish, hunt or trap on private land without permission of the owner or tenant thereof, after such owner or tenant has conspicuously posted thereon notices which bear the name of such owner or tenant and which state that fishing, hunting or trapping o…

Section 37. An owner or tenant of land or, if authorized by such owner or tenant, any member of his immediate family or his employee, as defined pursuant to section one of chapter sixty-two B, may, upon such land:— (1) kill or attempt to kill, by means other than poisoning or tra…

Section 38. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the director may, upon application of a farmer, as defined in section one A of chapter one hundred and twenty-eight, grant a permit to trap live, and thereafter destroy, birds that are destroying agricultural crops or endang…

Section 39A. A city or town in the county of Berkshire which accepts the provisions of this section may designate its conservation commission, or if having none, the board of selectmen in a town or the mayor in a city, to carry out the provisions of this section. The designated a…

Section 4. The director may: (1) destroy from time to time license books, stubs, licenses and license blanks after the same have been properly audited by the state auditor, and such other documents as the director deems advisable after the same have been noted in the official rec…

Section 40. No person shall remove, fill, dredge or alter any bank, riverfront area, fresh water wetland, coastal wetland, beach, dune, flat, marsh, meadow or swamp bordering on the ocean or on any estuary, creek, river, stream, pond, or lake, or any land under said waters or any…

Section 40A. The commissioner of environmental protection shall from time to time, for the purpose of preserving and promoting the public safety, private property, wildlife, fisheries, water resources, flood plain areas and agriculture, adopt, amend or repeal orders regulating, r…

Section 40B. The farmland advisory board established in section forty shall meet quarterly and at the call of the commissioner or upon written request of any two members. The board is charged with advising the commissioner relative to the definitions of ''normal maintenance or im…

Section 41. If the director determines that any fisheries in the inland waters of the commonwealth are of sufficient value to warrant the prohibition or regulation of the discharge of any waste or other material from any source, which may, directly or indirectly, injure such fish…

Section 42. A person shall not put, throw, discharge or permit to be discharged or to escape into any inland waters of the commonwealth any waste or other material, in violation of section forty or of any provisions of the Massachusetts Clean Water Act, which may directly or indi…

Section 43. A person shall not place poison in any form whatsoever for the purpose of killing any mammal or bird except pursuant to a permit issued under the provisions of this section; provided, that this section shall not prohibit any person from placing in his orchard or in or…

Section 44. A person while engaged in hunting, fishing or trapping shall not deposit or cause to be deposited garbage, paper, refuse, bottles, cans, rubbish or trash of any kind or nature on any public or private property without permission of the owner, tenant or lessee of such …

Section 45. Except as otherwise provided in this section and elsewhere in this chapter, every great pond not actively being used as a source of water supply of any town, water supply or fire district or public institution, and not subject to the provisions of section one hundred …

Section 46. The department of environmental protection shall, upon the request and at the expense of any person claiming to be interested in a pond, cause a measurement thereof to be made which shall be recorded in the office of the clerk of each city and town within the limits o…

Section 47. No riparian proprietor of a natural pond other than a great pond, or of an artificial pond of any size, or of a nonnavigable stream, shall enclose the waters thereof within the limits of his own premises unless he furnishes a suitable passage for all anadromous fish n…

Section 48. A person shall not, except in case of emergency, drain any pond, reservoir or other body of water, except a body of water used for irrigation or insect control purposes, or for flooding cranberry bogs, or for public water supply, to an extent dangerous to fish life th…

Section 49. If, in the case of a pond situated partly in the commonwealth and partly in another state, the laws of such other state permit fishing in that part thereof lying within such other state by persons licensed or otherwise entitled under the laws of the commonwealth to fi…

Section 5. The director shall declare an open season on fish, birds, reptiles, amphibians or mammals in any county where such open season seems advisable, and may make rules and regulations relating to the time and length of such open season, bag limits, possession limits, method…

Section 50. A person shall not, except as otherwise permitted by law, take or attempt to take any fish in inland waters, in any other manner than by angling; but cities and towns may permit the use of nets and seines for taking herring and alewives, and may permit the use of pots…

Section 51. Brook, brown and rainbow trout may be taken in coastal waters of the commonwealth by angling only, subject to the rules and regulations promulgated under section five for taking such trout in rivers and streams.

Section 52. Shiners, minnows, killifish, sculpin, sticklebacks, and suckers may be taken for bait, but not for the purpose of sale, in any of the inland waters of the commonwealth by means of a single fish trap with openings not over one inch or by a single circular or hoop net n…

Section 52A. Eels may be taken commercially in inland waters except ponds having a diked opening to the sea by a licensed fisherman possessing a license to do so for the purpose of sale. The director of fisheries and wildlife is hereby authorized to establish rules and regulation…

Section 53. A person shall not fish with floats, otherwise known as toggle fishing, in any inland water of the commonwealth. For the purposes of this section, a ''float'' shall mean any device floating with a line and hook attached, baited with natural or artificial bait and not …

Section 54. Except as otherwise permitted by law, a person shall not draw, set, stretch or use a fish trap, gill net, drag net, set net, purse net, seine or trawl, or set or use more than two hooks for fishing, or, in the case of ice fishing, five hooks, in any inland water, or a…

Section 55. Any net, seine, trawl, or other similar device used by any person in violation of any provision of this chapter, or of any rule or regulation made under authority thereof, and any fish taken in violation thereof, shall be forfeited to the commonwealth and disposed of …

Section 56. This chapter shall not be deemed to affect any provision or penalty contained, or any privilege granted, in any special statute relating to fisheries in any particular place, nor to any alewife fisheries under the provisions of sections ninety-four to ninety-seven, in…

Section 57. Every Sunday shall be a closed season. Except as otherwise provided in sections four, thirty-one and thirty-seven, a person, on Sunday, shall not hunt any bird or mammal or carry on that day on his person a rifle, shotgun or bow and arrow or, unless otherwise permitte…

Section 58. A person shall not discharge any firearm or release any arrow upon or across any state or hard surfaced highway, or within one hundred and fifty feet, of any such highway, or possess a loaded firearm or hunt by any means on the land of another within five hundred feet…

Section 59. A person shall not hunt, or in any manner molest or destroy, any bird or mammal within the boundaries of any reservation, park or common, or any land owned or leased by the commonwealth or any political subdivision thereof, or any land held in trust for public use; ex…

[There is no 131:5A.]

Section 5B. The director shall administer the natural heritage and endangered species program in accordance with clauses (3) and (13A) of section four, and shall promulgate rules and regulations, subject to the procedures established in chapter thirty A, for said program, includi…

Section 5C. No person shall obstruct, interfere with or otherwise prevent the lawful taking of fish or wildlife by another at the locale where such activity is taking place. It shall be a violation of this section for a person to intentionally (1) drive or disturb wildlife or fis…

Section 6. The director, with the approval of the fisheries and wildlife board, may:— (1) for the purpose of providing public fishing grounds, acquire by gift, lease, easement, purchase, exchange or license or accept by transfer, fishing rights and privileges or lands or interest…

Section 60. A person shall not use any firearm, bow and arrow or other weapon or article in a careless or negligent manner so as to cause bodily injury or death to another while engaged in hunting or target shooting. Any person, while so engaged, who causes injury or death to any…

Section 61. A person shall not use any firearm, bow and arrow or other weapon or article in a careless or negligent manner so as to cause damage to property or livestock of another while engaged in hunting, fishing, trapping or target shooting. Whoever violates any provision of t…

Section 62. A person, with a percentage, by weight, of alcohol in their blood of eight one-hundredths or greater, or while under the influence of intoxicating liquor, or of marihuana, narcotic drugs, depressant or stimulant substances, all as defined in section 1 of chapter 94C, …

Section 63. A person, other than the director of law enforcement, his deputy directors of enforcement, chiefs of enforcement, deputy chiefs of enforcement, environmental police officers, deputy environmental police officers, warden and members of the state or local police in area…

Section 64. A person shall not use for hunting purposes any type of full automatic firearm, machine gun or submachine gun, or any crossbow, except as provided in section 69, nor use any tracer or incendiary ammunition for hunting or outdoor target shooting purposes except on a sk…

Section 65. Except as otherwise provided by law, a person shall not hunt any bird or mammal by the aid or use of any motor vehicle, including a snowmobile, helicopter or other aircraft, or any bird by the aid or use of any boat or floating device propelled by sail, steam, naphtha…

Section 65A. (a) For the purposes of this section, ''online shooting or spearing'' means the use of a computer or any other device, equipment, software or technology, to remotely control the aiming and discharge of any weapon including, but not limited to, any firearm, bow and ar…

Section 66. A person shall not, except during the prescribed open season when deer may be hunted lawfully with a shotgun, have in his possession a shotgun shell loaded with a rifled slug, single ball, buckshot of any size, BB shot or air rifle shot in any place where birds or mam…

Section 67. A person shall not use or possess, where birds or mammals may be found, any rifle chambered to take larger than twenty-two long rifle ammunition, or any revolver or pistol chambered to take larger than thirty-eight caliber ammunition between the hours of one half hour…

Section 68. A person shall not hunt any bird or mammal except raccoon or opossum by the aid or use of any artificial light, or hunt any bird with a swivel or pivot gun. Any weapon or equipment used in such hunting by any person convicted of a violation of this section shall be co…

Section 69. A person shall not carry or use a bow and arrow while hunting unless said bow and arrow meet such requirements as may be set by rules and regulations which the director is hereby authorized to promulgate. Such rules and regulations shall prescribe general design, weig…

Section 7. For the purpose of protecting any species of useful fish, birds or mammals and for aiding the propagation thereof, the director may acquire in fee by purchase, gift or devise, or may lease, or with the consent of the owners, may control, any land, water or shore or the…