Taxidermy Laws in Hawaii: What Hunters, Collectors, and Taxidermists Need to Know

Picking up a dead bird on a Hawaii beach and taking it to a taxidermist sounds harmless, but it can trigger a federal wildlife violation before you ever pay a mounting fee. Taxidermy laws in Hawaii layer state wildlife statutes, federal migratory bird rules, and species-by-species restrictions that most residents never encounter until they try to preserve a trophy, a roadkill bird, or a family heirloom mount. The rules differ sharply depending on whether the animal is legally hunted game, a protected native species, or something imported from outside the islands.

This breakdown walks through who needs a permit, which species are off-limits, how the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act layers on top of state law, and what happens to hunters or taxidermists who skip the paperwork. Whether you’re a licensed hunter with a feral pig to mount or a shop owner handling client trophies, the distinctions below determine whether your project is legal or a citable offense.

Do You Need a Taxidermy License or Permit in Hawaii?

Hawaii does not issue a single statewide “taxidermist license” the way some mainland states do. Instead, taxidermy activity is regulated indirectly through the state’s wildlife statute, Hawaii Revised Statutes Chapter 183D, which governs the taking, possession, and transport of wild birds, game birds, and game mammals across the islands. Anyone handling a protected or regulated species for mounting purposes needs to trace that authority back to a permit issued under this chapter rather than a taxidermy-specific credential.

The Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR), through its Division of Forestry and Wildlife (DOFAW), administers permits for scientific, propagation, and educational purposes under Hawaii Administrative Rules Title 13. Chapter 124 of the administrative rules allows the board to issue permits for collecting, possessing, killing, selling, and transporting indigenous wildlife, introduced wild birds, game birds, or game mammals for scientific or educational purposes, including cultural activities. If your mounting project involves anything beyond your own legally taken game, this is the permit track that likely applies.

Running a commercial taxidermy business also requires a standard general business registration and a General Excise Tax license from the state Department of Taxation, separate from any wildlife permit. Neither of those licenses substitutes for the species-specific authorization DLNR requires when the animal involved is a protected or regulated species.

Pro Tip: Before accepting any specimen you did not personally and legally take, ask the client for proof of a valid hunting license or salvage permit. A taxidermist who mounts an illegally taken animal can face the same liability as the person who killed it.

Commercial Taxidermy vs Mounting Your Own Legally Taken Wildlife in Hawaii

Mounting an animal you hunted yourself, under a valid license, is the most straightforward scenario under Hawaii law. A resident hunting license costs $10, while a non-resident license runs $95, and it must be renewed every year to remain valid on both public and private land. Once you’ve legally taken a feral pig, goat, sheep, or game bird under that license, you generally have the right to preserve it yourself or hand it to a commercial taxidermist without needing a separate mounting permit.

Running a taxidermy business for other people’s trophies is a different undertaking entirely. Gordon Lau Jr., owner of Oahu Taxidermy Service, has spent decades processing everything from quail to trophies his clients bring back from as far away as Africa and New Zealand. A full mounting job can take roughly ten hours of cleaning, tanning, airbrushing, and mannequin fitting, according to a Hawaii Business Magazine profile, with costs ranging from around $150 for a quail to $800 or more for larger game.

Anyone hunting on Hawaii’s public lands should also review the state’s hunting laws in Hawaii before assuming a mount is automatically legal. Interisland movement adds another wrinkle: interisland transportation and possession of wild or feral deer is prohibited under HRS 183D-52, meaning a legally taken deer mount on one island cannot simply be shipped to a taxidermist on another.

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

Hawaii sorts wildlife into three practical categories for taxidermy purposes, and mixing them up is the single most common way people run afoul of the law. Game species taken under a valid hunting license, such as feral pigs, feral goats, feral sheep, axis deer (Axis axis) on Maui, Molokai, and Lanai, and introduced game birds like pheasant and wild turkey, are generally mountable once legally harvested. Nongame native species, including the nene goose (Branta sandvicensis) and the Hawaiian hawk, sit in a completely different legal bucket.

Category	Examples	Mounting Status
Licensed game species	Feral pig, feral goat, axis deer, pheasant, wild turkey	Mountable if legally taken under a hunting license
Protected native/nongame birds	Nene goose, Hawaiian hawk, native honeycreepers	Illegal to possess or mount without a DLNR/federal permit
Unprotected introduced species	Mongoose, rats, feral pigeons in some contexts	Generally unregulated for taxidermy purposes

State law is explicit about the middle category. No person shall intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly take, catch, injure, kill, or destroy any wild bird, or keep or have possession of any wild bird, dead or alive, except as permitted under a specific take authorization. That means finding a dead native bird and mounting it is illegal without a permit, regardless of how the bird died.

Anyone raising domestic fowl alongside game bird hunting should also understand the distinction Hawaii draws between wild and domestic species; the state’s backyard chicken laws in Hawaii cover ownership rules for domestic poultry, which fall outside Chapter 183D entirely. Feral goats present a similar split: they’re managed as game animals for hunting purposes, but anyone keeping goats as livestock should review Hawaii’s goat ownership laws separately from the hunting and taxidermy framework.

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

Even when state law would allow it, federal law can still block a mount. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Pacific Islands Fish and Wildlife Office administers permits under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and issues permits for activities including falconry, scientific collecting, salvage, taxidermy, and waterfowl sale and disposal. This federal layer applies on top of, not instead of, any state permit you obtain from DLNR.

Salvage situations are where this trips up the most people. Finding a migratory bird that died naturally, such as from a window strike or vehicle collision, does not give you automatic permission to mount it; you generally need a federal salvage or taxidermy permit first. Anyone dealing with a bird found dead on a roadway should also check Hawaii’s roadkill laws, since state possession rules for roadkill wildlife interact directly with the federal permit requirement for migratory species.

Important Note: The USFWS Pacific Islands office does not issue hunting or fishing licenses; those come from DLNR. But migratory bird taxidermy permits, even for common species, come from the federal office, not the state.

Endangered, Threatened, and CITES Specimens in Hawaii

Hawaii’s endangered species framework, codified largely in HRS Chapter 195D, sits alongside the federal Endangered Species Act to protect the state’s many threatened and endangered birds, plants, and marine species. Mounting any specimen from a listed species without explicit authorization is a serious violation regardless of how the animal was obtained, because possession itself, not just taking, is restricted.

International specimens bring the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) into play, and Hawaii has added its own layer on top. State law prohibits selling, offering to sell, purchasing, trading, or bartering any part or product from elephant, rhinoceros, tiger, great apes, hippopotamus, lion, pangolin, cheetah, jaguar, or leopard. This wildlife trafficking statute even reaches extinct species, since it also bars trade in mammoth parts. There is a narrow carve-out for traditional cultural practices protected under the state constitution, but that exception is limited and does not open the door to commercial sale of these parts.

Anyone bringing a trophy or mounted specimen into Hawaii from another state or country should also review the state’s pet and animal import laws, since quarantine and import screening rules can apply to certain animal products crossing state lines, separate from the CITES and trafficking restrictions above.

Recordkeeping, Tagging, and Inspection Rules for Taxidermists in Hawaii

Hawaii’s licensing framework builds inspection rights directly into every DLNR-issued license and permit. Under the department’s general terms and conditions, license holders must present their license to any officer authorized to enforce state law upon request and must allow their catch or take to be inspected by that officer. Taxidermists working with client-supplied specimens should keep the same standard: retain proof of the client’s hunting license, harvest date, and location for every mount that involves a regulated species.

Enforcement falls to the Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement (DOCARE), described as the law enforcement agency for the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources, also known as the Hawaii DLNR Police. DOCARE officers have authority to inspect wildlife, licenses, and related documentation in the field or at a business location, so a taxidermy shop without a clear paper trail for its specimens is exposed during any inspection.

Game bird tagging adds another layer for hunters. Turkey hunters, for example, need a game bird stamp attached to their license before tags can be issued, and those tags typically need to stay with the carcass through the mounting process to establish a clean chain of custody.

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

Clients occasionally never pick up a finished mount, leaving taxidermists with inventory they didn’t create for themselves. Hawaii does not have a taxidermy-specific abandoned property statute, so shop owners typically fall back on general commercial lien and abandoned property principles, plus whatever pickup terms were spelled out in the original service agreement, to determine when a mount can legally be resold.

One piece of good news for Hawaii taxidermists: the state’s 2021 fur product sale ban does not touch legitimate taxidermy work. When lawmakers banned the manufacture, import, and sale of fur products in the state, they carved out a specific exemption for the pelt or skin of any animal that is preserved through taxidermy or for the purposes of taxidermy. That means a taxidermist can still legally sell a finished, unclaimed mount, so long as the underlying specimen was legally taken and permitted in the first place.

Penalties for Unlicensed Taxidermy or Illegal Possession in Hawaii

Penalties scale with the severity of the violation and the species involved. General wildlife take-and-possession offenses under Chapter 183D typically carry fines and potential jail time, while species-specific violations can carry much steeper consequences.

Violation	Statute/Law	Potential Penalty
Illegal possession of protected native birds	HRS 183D-62	Fines and possible imprisonment
Wildlife trafficking (elephant, tiger, rhino parts, etc.)	HRS 183D-66	Fines tied to value of the illegal parts
Illegal shark capture or killing in state waters	Act 51 / HB 553	Up to $10,000 per offense
Interisland deer transport violations	HRS 183D-52	Fines and possible license revocation

The shark statute illustrates how far Hawaii is willing to go for certain species. Hawaii’s shark law makes it illegal to intentionally capture, entangle, or kill any shark within state marine waters, with fines of up to $10,000 per offense. That means a shark jaw or fin taken from Hawaii waters, even accidentally, cannot legally be mounted or sold under state law, regardless of a taxidermist’s skill or intent.

DOCARE officers have broad authority to cite, seize specimens, and refer cases for prosecution when they find undocumented or illegally possessed wildlife during an inspection. A taxidermy business found repeatedly handling unpermitted specimens risks losing its ability to obtain future DLNR permits altogether.

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

Start with the Division of Forestry and Wildlife for anything involving state hunting licenses, game tags, or scientific and educational permits under Chapter 124. Hawaii Island hunters can reach the DOFAW offices directly: the Hilo office can be reached at 808-974-4221 and the Waimea office at 808-887-6063 for license, tag, and permit questions.

For federal migratory bird taxidermy permits, salvage authorizations, or endangered species questions that involve federal law, the contact point is the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Pacific Islands Fish and Wildlife Office, which issues these permits directly rather than routing them through the state. If your case involves any DOCARE enforcement question, such as reporting a suspected violation or clarifying an inspection, DOCARE operates as the enforcement division within DLNR statewide.

• Hunting licenses and game tags: DOFAW island offices or the DLNR hunting portal
• Scientific, educational, or propagation permits: DOFAW under HAR Chapter 124
• Migratory bird taxidermy and salvage permits: USFWS Pacific Islands Fish and Wildlife Office
• Suspected violations or enforcement questions: DOCARE

Before starting any mounting project involving a species you’re unsure about, a five-minute call to the appropriate office is far cheaper than a citation. Hawaii’s overlapping state and federal wildlife rules were not built with taxidermy specifically in mind, which is exactly why confirming permit status case by case matters more here than in states with a single, dedicated taxidermy license.