Feeding Wild Birds in Maine: What State Law Really Allows and Restricts

Hang a tube feeder full of black sunflower seed in your Maine backyard, and you’re doing something almost every homeowner in the state does without a second thought. Feeding wild birds laws in Maine turn out to be far less restrictive than most residents assume, at least for chickadees, finches, and jays. The trouble starts the moment your feeder attracts something with claws bigger than a woodpecker’s.

Maine’s wildlife statutes draw a sharp line between songbirds and larger animals like bears, deer, moose, and wild turkeys. You can fill a feeder every day of the year for cardinals and nuthatches, but the same feeder can put you on the wrong side of state rules if it starts drawing in bigger wildlife. This guide walks through what’s actually legal, where municipalities and HOAs can add their own restrictions, and what penalties look like when the rules are broken.

Is It Legal to Feed Wild Birds in Maine

Feeding songbirds, woodpeckers, and other non-game species is legal throughout Maine, and no state permit is required to hang a feeder or scatter seed on your own property. The black-capped chickadee (Poecile atricapillus), Maine’s state bird, is exactly the kind of species this hobby was built around, and nothing in Title 12 of Maine Revised Statutes prohibits offering it food.

What the law does regulate is what happens to wild birds once they’re on your property. Maine law makes it unlawful to take, possess, or needlessly destroy the nest or eggs of any wild bird except the English or European house sparrow, the European starling and the rock pigeon. Selling live wild birds is similarly off-limits, since a person may not sell or possess for sale a wild bird, except for the plumage of lawfully taken wild birds, and only if that sale does not violate regulations of the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

That federal layer matters too. More than eight hundred species of birds are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA, 16 U.S.C. §§ 703-712), which makes it unlawful to pursue, hunt, take, capture, kill or sell migratory birds. Feeding birds doesn’t violate the MBTA, but harassing, trapping, or harming them at your feeder can. Maine adds its own layer on top, since Title 12 Chapter 915 prohibits the take, possession or needless destruction of wild bird nests or eggs, and a permit is required to possess any wildlife species regulated by the department. If you’re weighing wild bird feeding against keeping domesticated poultry, it helps to compare the two frameworks; Maine’s backyard chicken laws operate under a completely separate permitting structure than wild bird feeding does. The same goes for other backyard wildlife hobbies — anyone considering an exotic pet should check exotic pet ownership permits in Maine before assuming the rules mirror simple bird feeding.

Species Group	Legal to Feed?	Governing Authority
Songbirds (chickadees, finches, jays, etc.)	Yes, no permit needed	General MBTA protections; no state feeding ban
Woodpeckers, wrens, sparrows (native)	Yes	MBTA and Title 12 nest/egg protections
Waterfowl (ducks, geese, swans)	Generally yes, with caveats	12 MRSA §10001; MBTA
Wild turkey	Restricted	12 MRSA §10105(14), as amended
Black bear	Restricted / discretionary limits	12 MRSA §10105(14), as amended
Deer, moose	Restricted seasonally or by rule	12 MRSA §10105(14), as amended

Bird Feeder Placement and Height Rules in Maine

Maine’s state statutes don’t set a mandated feeder height or a required setback distance from property lines. Unlike some building codes that regulate structures by inches and feet, wild bird feeding is treated as a low-risk backyard activity, and the legislature has never felt the need to micromanage pole height.

That doesn’t mean placement is a free-for-all. Local zoning ordinances can occasionally touch on accessory structures, and if your feeder is mounted on a pole tall enough to qualify as a structure under a municipal code, some towns may ask for a permit. This overlaps with the same kind of local review that governs other backyard setups; homeowners adding a kennel structure under Maine zoning rules run into a similar patchwork of town-by-town requirements.

Pro Tip: Mount feeders at least 10 feet from windows or within 3 feet of glass to reduce fatal bird strikes, and keep them roughly 5 feet off the ground and away from fence lines or low branches that give predators an easy launch point.

Placement also matters for reasons that have nothing to do with height. Feeders positioned near property lines can spill seed onto a neighbor’s yard, and seed buildup on the ground is one of the most common ways backyard feeding escalates into a wildlife complaint. Keeping the area under your feeder raked and clean does more legal protection for you than any height requirement would.

Feeding Waterfowl: Ducks, Geese, and Special Restrictions in Maine

Ducks, geese, and swans fall under a specific legal category in Maine wildlife law. State statute defines Anatidae, or waterfowl, including brant, wild ducks, geese and swans, as a protected group, and species like the American black duck (Anas rubripes) are among the birds that draw both feeders and hunters to Maine’s wetlands.

Feeding wild ducks and geese for enjoyment isn’t banned statewide, but it sits in a legally different context than backyard songbird feeding. Waterfowl are heavily regulated for hunting purposes, and the rules around live birds get strict in that context. For instance, all live, tame or captive ducks and geese must be removed for a period of 10 consecutive days prior to hunting, and confined within an enclosure that substantially reduces the audibility of their calls and totally conceals such tame birds from the sight of migratory waterfowl. That rule exists to stop hunters from using fed, tame birds as illegal live decoys, and it’s a good reminder that habituating wild waterfowl to human food can create legal complications down the line. Anyone who also hunts waterfowl in Maine should look at how the feeding and hunting rules intersect; Maine’s duck hunting regulations spell out season dates, bag limits, and the baiting restrictions that apply once hunting season opens on birds you may have been feeding all summer.

Practically speaking, most complaints about waterfowl feeding in Maine come from municipal park managers rather than state wardens. Overfed geese and ducks tend to concentrate in unnatural numbers around ponds, which creates water-quality problems and aggressive behavior toward visitors. Several coastal Maine communities discourage bread and food scraps near public docks and ponds for exactly this reason, even where no specific state statute names the practice.

Bear-Attractant Laws That Affect Bird Feeders in Maine

This is where feeding wild birds laws in Maine get their sharpest teeth. Black bear (Ursus americanus) is the species most likely to turn an innocent bird feeder into a legal and practical headache, and the state has both formal rules and strong informal guidance addressing it.

On the legislative side, the An Act To Strengthen Maine’s Wildlife Laws amended 12 MRSA §10105(14) so the state’s wildlife commissioner can regulate feeding practices tied to bear conflicts. Under that authority, the commissioner may prohibit the feeding of deer, bear, moose and wild turkey at any location if there is documented evidence of chronic wasting disease, prohibit or otherwise limit feeding if the type or location of feed is creating a public safety hazard or having a detrimental effect on the animals, and prohibit or otherwise limit the placement of garbage or other known attractants for deer, bear, moose and wild turkey if the placement creates a public safety hazard. The legislature justified the change bluntly, noting the feeding of bear, moose and wild turkey is creating a public safety hazard and having a detrimental effect on the bear, moose and wild turkey populations.

The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW) backs that legal authority with direct public guidance. According to the department’s own bear-safety press release, black bears emerge hungry from their dens after losing between 15-40% of their weight during winter and they immediately start looking for food. Bird feeders are one of the first places they check, since birdseed and grains have lots of calories, so they’re very attractive to bears. MDIFW’s advice is straightforward: you can continue to feed birds in the winter when bears are not active, but feeders need to come down once bears wake up.

Common Mistake: Assuming an empty feeder is harmless. Wildlife officials note that even an empty feeder still smells like food to a bear and can be torn down or destroyed simply because a bear remembers what used to be there.

Maine has the largest population of black bears in the lower 48, and they’re most active April through November, according to a WGME report on bear-conflict prevention. That activity window is the same period MDIFW recommends emptying and storing feeders, seed, garbage cans, and pet food.

Important Note: A 2012 Connecticut legislative research report found that Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, and Vermont have no such restrictions on intentional bear feeding, unlike New York and New Jersey. That comparison is more than a decade old, and Maine’s subsequent amendment to 12 MRSA §10105(14) gives the commissioner new discretionary authority to limit bear feeding under specific conditions. Confirm current rules with MDIFW before assuming older interstate comparisons still apply.

None of this affects legal bear hunting bait, which operates under an entirely separate permitting and tagging system tied to hunting season rather than backyard feeding. Anyone managing both bird feeders and bear encounters on rural property may also want to review Maine’s roadkill and wildlife carcass laws, since attractants left outdoors can draw scavengers well beyond bears.

HOA and Municipal Bird Feeding Restrictions in Maine

Maine has no statewide statute that specifically regulates homeowners associations and bird feeders. That leaves the door open for individual HOAs, condo associations, and town ordinances to set their own rules, and many do.

Common HOA restrictions include limits on feeder types, requirements to remove feeders during bear season, and outright bans in communities that have had repeated wildlife conflicts. Because these rules come from private covenants rather than state law, violating them typically triggers HOA fines or warnings rather than criminal charges. That’s a different enforcement track than the ones covered elsewhere in this guide, similar to how backyard beekeeping rules in Maine layer municipal permitting on top of otherwise legal agricultural activity.

• Check your covenants first. HOA bylaws take precedence over general state permissiveness on your own property.
• Ask about seasonal removal clauses. Some communities near known bear corridors require feeders down by a set date each spring.
• Review town ordinances separately from HOA rules. A municipality can add nuisance-wildlife language independent of any private association.

Important Note: HOA restrictions and municipal ordinances can be stricter than state law but generally cannot be looser than state or federal wildlife protections. If your HOA is silent on the issue, state rules still apply.

Municipal code overlaps with other regulated backyard activities in ways worth noting. Towns that restrict off-leash animals under Maine’s leash law requirements sometimes fold wildlife-attractant language into the same nuisance ordinances, since loose pets and unsecured feeders both tend to draw complaints from the same neighbors.

Feeding Birds on Public Land or Parks in Maine

Feeding songbirds in a Maine state park generally follows the same permissive baseline as feeding them at home, but the calculus changes once bears, waterfowl concentrations, or larger wildlife enter the picture. The same commissioner authority that lets MDIFW restrict feeding of deer, bear, moose, and wild turkey on private land applies equally to state-managed public land.

Federal land adds another layer. National park units in Maine, including Acadia National Park, generally operate under National Park Service policies that discourage feeding any wildlife, songbirds included, to prevent animals from becoming dependent on or aggressive toward visitors. Signage at trailheads and picnic areas typically spells out site-specific rules, and those posted rules control regardless of what’s legal on your own property.

Municipal parks fall somewhere in between. Many town-managed ponds and green spaces post their own no-feeding signs for ducks and geese, driven less by state statute and more by water-quality and overcrowding concerns. Disputes over feeding wildlife on shared or neighboring land can escalate quickly, and the dynamics resemble other neighbor-to-neighbor wildlife conflicts covered in guides like Maine’s rules on a neighbor’s cat wandering into your yard, where local nuisance ordinances end up doing more of the practical work than state statute.

Penalties for Violating Wildlife Feeding Laws in Maine

Penalties in this space depend heavily on which rule you’ve broken. Feeding chickadees and finches carries no penalty because there’s no prohibition to violate. The exposure shows up once you’re feeding a restricted species or creating a documented public safety hazard under 12 MRSA §10105(14).

Violations tied to the deer, bear, moose, and wild turkey feeding restrictions are enforced by the Maine Warden Service, and because the underlying statute sits within Maine’s fish and wildlife code, penalties for violating adopted rules typically follow the same enforcement track as other Title 12 wildlife violations — fines assessed through the district court system, with amounts set by the specific rule the commissioner adopts. Separately, anyone who harasses, traps, or harms a protected wild bird at a feeder risks federal exposure, since the MBTA makes it unlawful to pursue, hunt, take, capture, kill or sell migratory birds and does not discriminate between live or dead birds, extending full protection to feathers, eggs and nests as well.

Important Note: For comparison, a 2012 Connecticut legislative report found that maximum fines for violating bear feeding laws elsewhere in the Northeast range from $250 in New York to $1,000 in New Hampshire and New Jersey. Maine’s penalty structure for feeding-related violations is not identical to those states, so confirm current fine schedules directly with the Maine Warden Service rather than assuming a neighboring state’s numbers apply.

HOA and municipal penalties run on a separate track entirely, typically starting with a warning letter, followed by fines set in local ordinance or association bylaws rather than state statute. This mirrors how other locally enforced animal ordinances work; violations of municipal breed-specific ordinances in Maine follow a similar local-fine structure rather than routing through state wildlife court.

The safest approach if you’re feeding wild birds in Maine is simple: keep feeders limited to species with no feeding restriction, take them down when bears are active, check your HOA covenant before installing anything permanent, and treat any posted signage on public land as the final word on that specific property. Following those four habits keeps you well clear of every penalty tier described above.