Skip to Content
April 26, 2024 Clear | 36°F
The 193rd General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Section 65: Hunting from motor vehicle, snowmobile, aircraft or watercraft

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, gasoline, electricity, compressed air or similar motive power, unless such boat or floating device is beached, resting at anchor, or fastened within or tied immediately alongside of any type of fixed hunting blind; nor shall he, for the purpose of taking or killing a wild bird, place or cause to be placed upon the shores or foreshores of or in or upon any waters within the commonwealth, grain of any kind.

Nothing in this section shall prohibit the shooting of wounded or crippled migratory game birds from a powered craft in coastal waters seaward of the first upstream bridge, or the picking up or retrieving of dead or injured migratory game birds by means of a motorboat, sailboat or other water craft.

Paraplegics issued a hunting license under the provisions of section eleven may use a motor vehicle, or a recreational vehicle or snow vehicle as defined in section twenty of chapter ninety B, as an aid to hunting birds or mammals, provided that said person shall not shoot or have in his possession or under his control a loaded rifle or shotgun while said vehicle is in motion.