Taxidermy Laws in Arkansas: License Rules, Species Restrictions, and Federal Permits Explained

Taxidermy laws in Arkansas surprise a lot of new mount owners: the state does not require a taxidermist to hold a state permit to practice the trade. That does not mean taxidermy is unregulated in Arkansas. Federal rules on migratory birds, CITES-listed furbearers, and species-specific possession limits still apply the moment you drop off a deer head, duck, or bobcat pelt.

This breakdown covers what Arkansas actually requires of taxidermists and their customers, where federal law fills the gaps the state leaves open, and what happens if you skip a required tag or permit. Whether you shot the animal yourself or found it on the side of the road, the rules below determine whether that mount can legally hang on your wall.

Do You Need a Taxidermy License or Permit in Arkansas?

Unlike many states that run a licensing board for taxidermists, Arkansas takes a lighter approach today. According to the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC), the AGFC does not require that taxidermists receive a permit to operate in the state.

That is a change from the state’s regulatory history. A 1989 act creating the framework still referenced in older statutes established a formal system: all persons who practice taxidermy as of the implementation date of this act shall be deemed to be eligible to purchase a license and must register with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission within ninety (90) days of the effective date of this act.

Anyone licensed after that window fell under a dedicated board, since any persons desiring to be licensed after that date will be subject to rules and regulations promulgated by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and administered by the Taxidermy Certification and Licensing Board.

The current AGFC guidance supersedes that older licensing framework for day-to-day practice, but two things still matter. First, if you plan to mount migratory birds for other people, you need a federal taxidermist permit regardless of state licensing status. Second, if Arkansas law changes again, taxidermists should stay registered with the state’s hunting regulations to catch any updates tied to their trade.

Pro Tip: Even without a state permit requirement, ask any taxidermist for their federal migratory bird taxidermy permit number before dropping off a duck, goose, or other waterfowl mount. Operating without it is a federal violation, not just a paperwork gap.

Commercial Taxidermy vs Mounting Your Own Legally Taken Wildlife in Arkansas

Arkansas draws a meaningful line between a hobbyist mounting their own legally taken game and a business that mounts wildlife for paying customers. If you harvested the animal yourself under a valid Arkansas hunting license, you can generally mount it for personal use without additional state paperwork.

Once wildlife changes hands for a taxidermy service, different rules kick in. The AGFC Code Book confirms that mounted or tanned wildlife may be bought or sold when accompanied by a bill of sale, which means commercial transactions need documentation even where no license is required to perform the work itself. This documentation trail matters if wildlife officers ever question how a mount came to be in someone’s possession.

Anyone taking game to a professional needs a current Arkansas hunting license covering the species involved, since the underlying harvest still has to be legal before a taxidermist can touch it. The 1989 act’s core principle on this point has not changed: game animals lawfully taken can be shipped or delivered to a taxidermist for preservation, but the paperwork trail from field to wall still has to hold up.

Scenario	State Permit Needed?	Key Requirement
Mounting your own legally taken deer or turkey	No	Valid hunting license for the harvest
Commercial taxidermy business (game species)	No state permit, but bill of sale required for transactions	Documented chain of custody
Mounting migratory birds for others (ducks, geese)	Federal permit required	50 CFR 21.63 taxidermist permit
Mounting bobcat or otter for export	No state license, but CITES tag mandatory	AGFC-issued export tag

What Species You Can and Cannot Mount in Arkansas (Game, Nongame, and Unprotected)

Not every animal that ends up in a taxidermist’s shop can legally be mounted. Arkansas sorts wildlife into rough categories, and each one carries different possession rules.

Game species with an open season, such as white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), wild turkey, and legally hunted furbearers, can be mounted once lawfully harvested. Furbearers like bobcat (Lynx rufus), coyote, and gray fox fall into this group too, though a few of them carry extra tagging steps covered in the next sections. If you’re sorting out which furbearer seasons apply before you book a mount, the rules for coyote hunting in Arkansas are a useful starting point since coyotes can be taken nearly year-round under state regulations.

Nongame protected birds sit in a much stricter category. Federal rules make clear that protected nongame birds such as songbirds, hawks, and owls can be legally brought to a taxidermist by game wardens, Federal agents, or holders of appropriate State and Federal permits, and once mounted, these birds can be legally possessed only by public scientific and educational institutions or individuals or facilities that have a valid Special Purpose Possession Dead permit. In plain terms, a private citizen cannot keep a mounted hawk or owl found in the yard, no matter how it died.

A narrow group of birds gets no federal protection at all. English sparrows, common starlings, and feral pigeons (rock doves) are not native to the United States and are not protected by Federal law, so mounting them carries none of the permit baggage attached to native songbirds.

Roadkill and found carcasses complicate things further. Arkansas has specific rules about who can pick up and possess an animal killed on a highway, and those rules interact directly with what a taxidermist is legally allowed to accept. Before bringing in a deer found along the roadside, check the roadkill possession laws in Arkansas to confirm you have the right paperwork to hand a carcass to a professional mount shop.

Important Note: Cervid products face an extra layer of scrutiny tied to Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD). Arkansas restricts importing whole carcasses from certain areas, though finished taxidermy products and cleaned skull plates are treated as low-risk and generally exempt from the carcass import ban, per the AGFC’s CWD regulations.

Federal Overlay You Still Must Follow: Migratory Bird Taxidermy Permits (MBTA)

This is the section that trips up the most taxidermists in Arkansas, because state licensing being optional does not touch federal law at all. Under 50 CFR 21.63, a taxidermist permit is required before any person may perform taxidermy services on migratory birds or their parts, nests, or eggs for any person other than himself.

That single sentence covers most ducks, geese, doves, and other migratory species regularly brought in after a hunt. If you mount your own legally taken duck, you don’t need the federal permit. The moment you mount one for someone else as a service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) permit becomes mandatory.

Tagging rules add another layer. Every bird accepted for mounting must arrive tagged, and the tag may be removed during taxidermy operations but must be retained and reattached after mounting, and must remain attached until the specimen is delivered to the owner. Skipping this step, even on an otherwise legal bird, can turn a routine mount into a federal violation.

Arkansas duck hunters bring in a steady volume of birds each fall, and the state’s duck hunting laws set the harvest limits and season dates that determine whether a bird was legally taken in the first place. A taxidermist accepting an out-of-season or over-limit bird is exposed under both state game law and the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act, regardless of the permit question.

There’s also a state-federal interlock worth understanding. Federal guidance notes that your permit is not valid unless you also are in compliance with State requirements… This means that if your State requires you to have a permit to perform taxidermy on migratory game birds, you must hold a valid State permit in order for your Federal permit to be valid. Since Arkansas currently does not impose that state-level permit, this clause mostly matters for taxidermists who also do business in states that do require one.

Endangered, Threatened, and CITES Specimens in Arkansas

A handful of species Arkansas taxidermists regularly handle carry international trade protections even though they are not endangered themselves. Bobcat and river otter (Lontra canadensis) fall into this category because of their resemblance to protected wild cat and otter species elsewhere in the world.

The AGFC’s own guidance is specific here: any bobcat or otter, whether in the form of a pelt, carcass, or taxidermy mount that enters Arkansas must have a CITES tag affixed to it at the time of entry. Any bobcat or otter that leaves Arkansas must have a CITES tag affixed by the AGFC. That requirement applies to finished mounts, not just raw pelts, so a customer moving a mounted bobcat across state lines needs the tag in place before it travels.

There’s a helpful exception for animals staying put. Bobcat that are legally trapped in Arkansas do not need to have a CITES tag on them unless they are going to leave the state. Otter possession has its own seasonal wrinkle too: it is unlawful for any person to possess an untagged otter (other than mounted specimens, tanned pelts, or animals in the possession of a taxidermist) from April 1 to the beginning of otter hunting and trapping seasons, which effectively gives taxidermists a narrow exemption while a mount is in progress.

American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) mounts get more straightforward treatment. Any cured and mounted trophies and articles manufactured from the lawfully acquired alligator skins or hides or other parts of any alligator or other crocodilian species may be sold, since Arkansas runs a regulated alligator season and tagging system that satisfies the underlying CITES concerns at the point of harvest.

For any species listed under the federal Endangered Species Act, taxidermy is essentially off the table without a specific federal permit, and most taxidermists in Arkansas will decline the job outright rather than navigate that process for a single specimen.

Recordkeeping, Tagging, and Inspection Rules for Taxidermists in Arkansas

Even without a state license, Arkansas taxidermists operate under real paperwork obligations, mostly flowing from federal permit conditions and older state statute language that remains on the books. The original 1989 act still sets a baseline: all wildlife and fish held by a taxidermist shall be labeled with the owner’s name and address. That single labeling requirement protects both the taxidermist and the customer if ownership is ever questioned.

Federal permit holders face considerably more detailed obligations. Under 50 CFR 21.63, permittees must keep accurate records of operations, on a calendar year basis, showing the names and addresses of persons from and to whom migratory birds or their parts, nests, or eggs were received or delivered, the number and species of such, and the dates of receipt and delivery. These logs need to be retained and available on demand.

Inspections are part of the deal too. Accepting a federal taxidermy permit means you authorize an agent of the Service to enter your premises at any reasonable hour to inspect the wildlife you hold, your books and records.

There is no advance-notice requirement, so records need to stay current at all times, not just when a renewal is due.

• Label every specimen with the owner’s name and address on intake
• Keep a calendar-year log of migratory bird receipts and deliveries if federally permitted
• Retain bird tags through the mounting process and reattach before delivery
• Keep bills of sale for any mount that changes ownership commercially
• Renew federal permits before the five-year term expires, since a taxidermist permit issued or renewed under this part expires… but the term of the permit will not exceed five (5) years from the date of issuance or renewal

Unclaimed Mounts: Can a Taxidermist Sell Abandoned Work in Arkansas?

Every shop eventually deals with a customer who never comes back for a finished mount. Arkansas does not have a taxidermy-specific statute spelling out exactly what happens to abandoned work, so most shops fall back on general principles that apply to any service business holding a customer’s property.

In practice, this usually means the taxidermist relies on the original service contract or work order signed at drop-off. A well-written contract should spell out a storage deadline, a notice process, and what happens if the customer never pays or returns for the mount, since state consumer-protection and bailment principles generally allow a business to recover costs from abandoned property after reasonable notice.

Important Note: Because Arkansas has no dedicated statute addressing abandoned taxidermy mounts specifically, taxidermists should build clear abandonment and lien language into their intake paperwork and confirm current practice with an attorney or the AGFC before disposing of or selling unclaimed work.

Species status still matters even for abandoned mounts. A taxidermist cannot sell an abandoned migratory bird mount to a third party the same way they might sell an abandoned deer shoulder mount, since federal ownership and transfer restrictions on protected species don’t disappear just because the original customer walked away.

Penalties for Unlicensed Taxidermy or Illegal Possession in Arkansas

Wildlife violations in Arkansas carry real financial and criminal exposure, even in areas where no state license exists to revoke. Under AGFC code, standard wildlife violations carry a $500.00 to $2,000.00 fine range, and a jail sentence not to exceed 10 days may be imposed and hunting privileges may be suspended.

Equipment tied to the violation is also at risk, since equipment used in such violations (including but not limited to killing devices and lights) may be confiscated by the court, forfeited to the State. These state-level penalties apply on top of federal exposure.

Illegally taking, possessing, or mounting a migratory bird without the required federal permit and tags violates the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and trafficking in illegally taken wildlife across state lines can trigger the federal Lacey Act, which carries its own separate fines and potential felony charges for repeat or commercial-scale violations.

Pro Tip: If you’re a hunter rather than a taxidermist, the fastest way to avoid penalty exposure is confirming your harvest was fully legal under Arkansas’s hunting regulations before you ever hand the animal to a professional mount shop. A taxidermist can lose their federal permit over a customer’s bad harvest.

Where to Apply and Who to Call in Arkansas (Wildlife Agency + USFWS)

Two separate agencies handle taxidermy-related questions in Arkansas, and knowing which one to call saves a lot of wasted time. For state-level questions on wildlife possession, furbearer permits, CITES tagging, and general hunting compliance, the AGFC Licensing Division is the right first call. The commission’s main office sits at 2 Natural Resources Drive, Little Rock, Arkansas 72205, and the licensing line can be reached at 833-345-0325.

For anything involving migratory birds, from the federal taxidermist permit itself to Form 3-186 questions on captive-reared waterfowl, contact goes through the USFWS Regional Migratory Bird Permit Office rather than the state agency.

Applications and renewals run through the Service’s ePermits system, and the Federal Migratory Bird Taxidermy Permit FAQ walks through the submission process, required documentation, and what to expect during a renewal cycle.

Question Type	Contact	Best For
Fur dealer permits, CITES tags, general licensing	AGFC Licensing Division, 833-345-0325	State-level furbearer and wildlife questions
Migratory bird taxidermist permit application	USFWS Regional Migratory Bird Permit Office (ePermits)	Ducks, geese, and other federally protected birds
CWD carcass import questions	AGFC Deer Program	Out-of-state deer, elk, or cervid transport

Keep in mind that fur dealer rules run separately from taxidermy questions. If you’re buying or reselling furs rather than having a mount made for personal use, a valid Resident Fur Dealer Permit ($50) or Nonresident Fur Dealer Permit ($100) is required to buy or resell furs in Arkansas unless you are an Arkansas resident purchasing tanned pelts, taxidermy mounts or whole carcasses of legally taken furbearers for personal use. That distinction determines which office you actually need to call.

Taxidermy laws in Arkansas end up being simpler on the state side than most hunters expect, but the federal layer, especially around migratory birds and CITES-listed furbearers, still demands attention. Confirm your harvest was legal, ask your taxidermist about their federal permit status when birds are involved, and keep the paperwork trail intact from field to finished mount.