Title 20, Title 20 and Wildlife

The CRMC shall establish, by regulation, fees for applications, permits, leases, and renewals. Those fees may be based on the cost of administration, including inspection, required by the aquaculture permitting process.

The CRMC may require the execution of a bond by the permittee to ensure the performance by the permittee of all of the conditions of his or her permit, and, in the event of a failure so to perform, to ensure the removal of aquaculture apparatus from the waters of the state.

(a) The CRMC shall require all permittees to mark off the areas under permit by appropriate ranges, monuments, stakes, buoys, or fences, so placed as not to interfere unnecessarily with navigation and other traditional uses of the surface. All permittees shall cause the area unde…

No person fifteen (15) years old or older shall catch or take any fish in any freshwater stream or freshwater pond within this state, or place or operate or superintend any device for the purpose of taking or catching fish in any of those waters, without having first obtained a l…

No person shall place, deposit, or explode any substance injurious to the health or life of fish in any stream or freshwater pond within this state; provided, however, a person may obtain a permit issued by the director of environmental management to use certain chemicals for the…

No person shall catch, or attempt to catch, or take any species of fish in any pond or stream stocked with trout by the department of environmental management or in any waters set apart by the department in which trout might be found, except during the open seasons, and subject t…

Any person who violates any provision of this chapter, or who violates any rule or regulation made under the provisions of this chapter, shall be guilty of a civil violation and be subject to a fine of one hundred dollars ($100) for each offense. Jurisdiction over violations of t…

Notwithstanding any inconsistent provision of law, the traffic tribunal shall have exclusive jurisdiction to hear and determine all violations specified in this chapter.

Unless otherwise specified by regulations adopted by the department of environmental management, only a rod and reel or other device held in and operated by hand shall be used to catch, or attempt to catch, fish in the freshwaters of the state, except that suckers, fall fish, and…

Nothing contained in this chapter shall be construed to prohibit the taking and possession, at any time of the year, fish artificially cultivated in private ponds. For the purpose of this section, a “private pond” is defined as a body of water that is completely in the ownership …

No person shall sell, or offer for sale, within this state, any trout, black bass, pickerel, northern pike, Atlantic salmon, American shad, or yellow perch taken from any freshwater streams, rivers, ponds, or lakes within the jurisdiction of this state, excepting any of these fis…

No person shall stock any freshwater stream or pond within this state with any species of fish, or place or liberate any fish in any freshwater stream or pond within this state, without having first obtained a permit from the department of environmental management. No person shal…

It shall be unlawful for any person to sell or barter, or engage in the business of taking or catching for the purpose of selling or bartering, freshwater live minnows for bait, or to possess more than one hundred (100) freshwater live minnows, without first procuring a license f…

Freshwater minnows, not including the young of any species of game fish, may be lawfully taken for bait with minnow traps, dip nets, and seines of the dimensions of not more than eight feet (8′) in length and four feet (4′) in depth and having a mesh not larger than one-quarter o…

Minnow seines of greater dimensions than authorized in § 20-11-8 may be lawfully possessed and used by a person licensed under this chapter, in the waters specified by the director of environmental management; provided, that no minnow seines so licensed shall exceed fifty feet (5…

The department of environmental management shall be empowered to introduce, protect, and cultivate fish in the inland waters of the state, and to construct, maintain, and operate fish cultivation and breeding facilities and undertake fish cultivation projects within the state as …

For the purpose of protecting and propagating fish and providing fishing preserves, the director of environmental management may, in the name and for the use of the state, and subject to approval of the state properties committee, acquire, by gift, lease, or purchase, land, fresh…

The department of environmental management shall establish and maintain freshwater hatcheries in this state for the purpose of providing freshwater and anadromous game fish to be used by the department in the stocking of the ponds and streams of the state. All of the output of th…

For the purpose of providing for the passage of anadromous fish species to their traditional spawning grounds in freshwater, the department of environmental management is authorized and directed to construct fishways around or through existing dams in the rivers and streams of th…

No person shall catch, or attempt to catch, any fish, or use any seine for catching fish, in waters acquired by the director of environmental management for fish cultivation projects, or within one half (½) mile from the mouth or outlet of any fish cultivation project; provided, …

The director of environmental management may seize, and remove summarily if need be, all obstructions erected to hinder the passage of fish or that are illegally erected to obstruct, or in any way impede, the growth and culture of fish; and every person rebuilding or continuing a…

No person shall take any fish or fish spawn, or any apparatus used in hatching or protecting fish, from any pond, lake, river, or stream stocked with, or set apart by, the director of environmental management, by any city or town, or by private parties, without the consent of the…

The general assembly shall annually appropriate any sum it may deem necessary to carry into effect the provisions of this chapter.

No person shall hunt, pursue, take, or kill any wild bird or mammal and any vertebrates in this state, or attempt so to do, without having first obtained a license; provided, that nothing in this chapter shall be construed as affecting the right of a bona fide resident of this st…

It is unlawful to hunt anywhere in this state, or to enter any of the fields or woods, or to enter upon any lands or water within or bordering this state, while possessing a firearm or other weapon for the purpose of hunting when intoxicated or under the influence of intoxicating…

It is unlawful for more than five (5) persons to hunt in unison, or to cooperate in any manner with each other to hunt, for wild birds or wild animals of any kind.

Every person causing an injury to a human being by gunfire while hunting; or inflicting an injury upon himself or herself with firearms while hunting; or inflicting an injury upon himself or herself while trapping shall make a report to the department of environmental management …

Whoever uses or has in his or her possession while hunting in this state any rifle: (a) larger than a twenty-two (22) caliber rim fire rifle; or (b) other than a muzzle loading rifle; or (c) other than any shotgun and shells loaded with ball, bullets, slug; or shot larger than nu…

It shall be unlawful for any person to sell, or offer for sale, within this state, at any season of the year, any wild bird or mammal or any vertebrate, or parts thereof, except as provided elsewhere in this title; provided, however, that this section shall not be construed to pr…

Any person causing an injury to another person by firearm or arrow while hunting failing to render assistance to the injured person shall, in addition to any other penalties provided by law, be subject to a fine of up to one thousand dollars ($1,000) or imprisonment for up to one…

(a) No person shall obstruct or interfere with the lawful taking of wildlife by another person at the location where the activity is taking place with intent to prevent the lawful taking. (b) A person violates this section when he or she intentionally or knowingly: (1) Drives or …

(a) The district court may enjoin conduct that would be in violation of § 20-13-16, upon petition by a person affected or who reasonably may be affected by this conduct, upon a showing that this conduct is threatened or that it has occurred on a particular premises in the past an…

(a) As used in this section, the term “captive hunting” means a hunt that occurs within a structure designed to restrict the free movement of animals created by the use of fences, man-made structures, and/or natural barriers, including, but not limited to, private lands set up as…

(a) The department of environmental management shall formulate courses of instruction in safe hunting practices and the handling and use of firearms and/or bow and arrow for persons applying for a license for the first time and shall designate one or more competent persons or org…

The department of environmental management shall make available the safety instruction required by § 20-13-2 on a continuing basis throughout the year at sites throughout the state for the convenience of the public. In no event shall safety instruction be offered less frequently …

Any person who has been refused designation as having successfully completed the courses taken under the provisions of § 20-13-2 may appeal that refusal to the director of environmental management who shall make the final determination of the competency of the applicant.

(a) No license to hunt shall be issued to any person unless that person has held a hunting license in a prior year or unless the person presents to the licensing agent a certificate of competency issued under § 20-13-2, or under an equivalent hunter safety program adopted by any …

(a) Authorized licensing agents, shall, upon the application of any eligible person and the payment of the license fee, issue to that person a license to pursue, hunt, and kill game in the state during the open season with firearms or by bow and arrow with an archer’s permit; pro…

Each nonresident hunting license shall enable the licensee to carry from the state not more than a two-day (2) bag limit of native game birds or animals nor more than the limit of migratory birds set by federal regulations; provided, that the owner shall carry them open to view f…

It is unlawful for any person, while hunting or pursuing wild birds or wild animals in this state, to shoot or discharge any firearm or other deadly weapon within five hundred feet (500′) of any occupied dwelling house, residence, or other building occupied by human beings, or an…

It is unlawful for any person to have in their possession a loaded rifle or loaded shotgun or a rifle or shotgun from the magazine of which all shells and cartridges have not been removed, in or on any vehicle or conveyance or its attachments while upon or along any public highwa…

It is unlawful for any person to hunt, pursue, kill, or shoot at any bird or animal along, upon, or across any public highway in this state.

(a) No person shall pursue, hunt with intent to kill, take, destroy, or have in his or her possession any wild bird or birds at any season of the year unless harvested or taken in accordance with rules and regulations promulgated by the director. Possession of any bird during the…

(a) A person may petition and be issued a depredation permit/order or control permit/order from the director, or his or her designee, in accordance with applicable federal law, for the taking of birds when found committing depredations upon agricultural crops, livestock, or wildl…

No person shall willfully disturb or destroy the nest or eggs of any wild bird, except pursuant to a program authorized by the director or for which a federal or state depredation permit has been issued.

Sections 20-14-1 and 20-14-2 shall not be construed to apply to the killing or destruction of nests or eggs of English or European house sparrows (Passer domesticus), or European starlings (Sternus vulgaris).