Ohio Restricts Feeding Wild Birds and Deer on Division of Wildlife Land

The provision people are usually looking for when they ask whether Ohio allows feeding wildlife is Ohio Administrative Code 1501:31-9-01, titled "Special regulations applying to all properties owned, leased, or under control of the division of wildlife." Subsection (P) is the feeding restriction, and its scope is the thing to read carefully. It reaches "lands owned, controlled, or maintained by the wildlife division including those lands managed by the division by virtue of a lease or an agreement." That last clause matters in practice, because the Division manages a good deal of ground it does not own outright, and the restriction follows the management relationship rather than the deed.

What the subsection prohibits is broad in substance but narrow in geography. It covers distributing, placing or scattering "salt, grain, or other feed whatsoever capable of luring, enticing, or attracting wild birds or deer." The phrase "or other feed whatsoever" means the rule is not a list of named substances that can be worked around; the test is whether what you put out is capable of drawing wild birds or deer. Mineral blocks, cracked corn and bait piles all fall inside that description. The only exception written into the text is advance written permission from the wildlife chief.

Subsection (Q) closes the hunting side of the same conduct. It makes it unlawful to hunt or take wild birds or deer by the use of that feed on the same lands, again absent written permission from the chief. Read together, (P) and (Q) mean that on Division land you may neither put the feed out nor hunt over it.

What this rule does not do is regulate feeding on private property. Its own words confine it to Division-managed land, and Ohio's other wildlife rules that readers are often pointed toward do not fill that gap: rule 1501:31-15-03 governs nuisance wild animal control and rule 1501:31-15-11 sets deer season dates, bag limits, implements and tagging. Neither contains a feeding or baiting prohibition. So if you are asking whether you can put out a bird feeder or a salt block on land you own, this rule is not what stops you.

That leaves local law as the place to look. Ohio municipalities and townships can and do adopt their own rules on feeding deer, waterfowl and feral cats, and those vary considerably from one jurisdiction to the next. Check the ordinance for the specific city or township rather than assuming a statewide answer, because the state rule above simply does not reach residential property.

Enforcement of this rule sits with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife, whose officers patrol the lands the rule covers. It is a wildlife regulation rather than a municipal ordinance, so a city police department or local code enforcement office is not the body that administers it.

The rule text quoted here states the prohibition and the written-permission exception but does not itself set out a penalty figure, a citation procedure or an appeal path, so no fine amount is given on this page. If you need the penalty that attaches to a violation, or you want to apply for the written permission the rule contemplates, contact the Division of Wildlife directly rather than relying on a number quoted second-hand.

If your question is about feeding on your own land, this rule is the wrong instrument and the Division is the wrong office. Look to the municipal or township code where the property sits.