Problem Solving

Is It Legal to Kill Chipmunks?

Usually, on your own land, once they damage your property. Whether "not a game animal" helps depends on the state: in New York it means unprotected, in Pennsylvania and Georgia it means protected until there is damage. Michigan's DNR says a chipmunk eating from a bird feeder is not damage.

Usually yes, on your own land, if the chipmunk is damaging your property. New York treats chipmunks as unprotected wildlife that owners may take "in any manner" when they injure property or become a nuisance. Pennsylvania and Georgia start from the other end: chipmunks are protected until they cause damage. Ohio and Indiana need no permit. Michigan dropped its permit in 2023, but its wildlife agency says a chipmunk eating from a bird feeder is not damage.

We read eight rules: the federal endangered species list, six states and Ontario, four in their own text and four through the agency, extension service or press. Keeping chipmunks off a feeder without any of this is covered on chipmunks at the feeder, and moving a trapped animal on squirrel relocation laws by state. Squirrels have their own rules, set out on is it legal to kill squirrels.

The rules we read#

For a backyard, the "Status" and "When you may kill one" columns decide most cases.

Every state row allows a homeowner to kill a chipmunk in some circumstances. What changes is the trigger.

Why the answers online disagree#

Two answers circulate: "chipmunks are not game animals, so they are not protected" and "chipmunks are protected wildlife." Both are right, in different states, because "not a game animal" means opposite things depending on how the state builds its law.

New York protects a list and leaves the rest. Its Environmental Conservation Law defines "protected wildlife" as wild game, protected birds and insects, and listed or special-concern species, and then says: "'Unprotected wildlife' means all wildlife which is not 'protected wildlife'." Chipmunks are on none of those lists. Cornell's pest management program lists them among New York's unprotected mammals, with moles, woodchucks and red squirrels. Woodchucks, or groundhogs, have their own page: is it legal to kill a groundhog. In New York, not game means not protected.

Pennsylvania and Georgia protect everything and carve out exceptions. Pennsylvania's rule is titled "Protection removed under certain circumstances," which only makes sense if protection is the starting point. Georgia's extension service says it in one line: "ALL non-game wildlife is protected in Georgia; therefore, it is illegal to kill any species unless specifically permitted by regulations." In those states, not game means protected.

So a Pennsylvanian who has read that chipmunks "are not protected" has read a New York answer. Every protected-by-default state we read still lets the owner act once there is damage; the difference is what has to happen first.

Does a chipmunk at a bird feeder count as damage?#

Only one agency answered this directly. When Michigan proposed dropping the permit in 2023, DNR specialist Cody Norton told Michigan Public: "Just them eating out of a bird feeder or breaking your bird feeder is not going to be damage that would justify taking them." What does count, he said, is "damage to forest products, roads, dams, buildings, orchards, apiaries, livestock and horticultural or agricultural crops."

The other triggers, side by side:

• New York: "injuring their property or has become a nuisance," the easiest test of the eight.
• Pennsylvania: "personal property, other than an agricultural crop, is being destroyed or damaged."
• Georgia: mammals "causing or about to cause damage."
• Ontario: you believe "on reasonable grounds that wildlife is damaging or is about to damage" your property.
• Ohio and Indiana: no damage test appears in the text we read.

Seed you put out for birds, eaten by a wild animal, is a weak fit for "damage" in any of them, and Michigan has said outright that it does not fit. Burrows under a patio, steps or retaining wall are a better fit; see burrows, patios and foundations.

Pennsylvania: protected until there is damage#

58 Pa. Code 141.3(a) removes protection from wildlife, "except migratory birds, big game and threatened or endangered species, when personal property, other than an agricultural crop, is being destroyed or damaged." Then three conditions:

• Who: "the owner or person in charge of the personal property affected."
• How: "in a humane and lawful manner."
• Afterward: the animal "may not be retained alive, sold or given away," and must be turned over to the Game Commission as section 2125 of the Game and Wildlife Code requires. Section 2125 means making the carcass available "to any commission officer calling for them."

One clause the summaries leave out is 141.3(b)(3): "Wildlife taken alive may be relocated to a natural setting unless otherwise restricted or prohibited." So Pennsylvania's own rule allows moving a live-caught chipmunk, unless something else restricts it.

Penn State's landowner guide, prepared with the Game Commission (updated August 31, 2016), marks kill trapping, live capture, shooting, repellents and habitat changes as lawful for chipmunks. Toxicants and fumigants are not marked lawful. The feeder side of the region is on bird feeding in the Northeast.

New York: unprotected, any manner#

ECL 11-0523(1) is the broadest text we read. "Owners and lessees and members of their immediate families actually occupying or cultivating lands" may take "unprotected wildlife other than birds ... when such wildlife is injuring their property or has become a nuisance thereon." It may be done "in any manner, notwithstanding any provision of the Fish and Wildlife Law ... or the Penal Law or any other law," and subdivision 8 says no license or permit is needed.

The limit is on the live animal. DEC: "It is illegal for you to move or relocate an animal off your property." Cornell: an unprotected animal "can be released on the same property where it was captured or must be killed and buried or cremated."

Ohio, Indiana and Michigan#

Ohio handles chipmunks under its nuisance wild animal rule, Admin. Code 1501:31-15-03 (effective January 1, 2024). Killing most nuisance animals takes written permission from the Division of Wildlife; paragraph (E)(4) lists those that need none, and chipmunk is on it. Paragraph (E)(3)(c): "Squirrels, chipmunks, woodchucks, mice, shrews, voles, rats, rabbits, mink, muskrats or moles may be released or may be euthanized." For anyone not licensed: no fee, no selling or giving away a live animal, no trapping on another person's land without permission, no holding a trapped animal "longer than twenty-four hours from the time of capture," and traps checked "once every calendar day."

Indiana's DNR is the plainest of all: "Chipmunks can be captured or killed year-round without a permit or hunting or trapping license from the DNR, and there are no limits to the number that can be taken." The one condition is about release: "you must have permission from a landowner or property manager to release one on their property."

Michigan changed in 2023, when an amendment to the Wildlife Conservation Order added chipmunks and several other small mammals to the animals a landowner may take without a permit. Norton told Capital News Service in October 2026 that the change "simply removed the need for landowners to obtain a physical permit." The condition, as Michigan Wildlife Conservancy's Aaron Sullivan put it, is that "the animal is doing or physically present where it could imminently cause damage." Relocating one still needs "a physical permit" from the DNR, Norton said. We read Michigan's rule through these two reports, not in the order's own text. The Midwest feeder picture is on bird feeding in the Midwest.

Georgia: protected, with a property exception#

UGA Extension Circular 910 (reviewed December 2022) gives Georgia's position in its legal status section: all non-game wildlife is protected, but "generally, homeowners can protect their property from mammals causing or about to cause damage. This does not allow citizens to kill wildlife out of season or in violation of federal, state or local laws or ordinances."

On methods it warns that "it is often illegal to discharge any firearms inside city limits," that "homeowners cannot trespass on other property to release trapped animals," and that using mothballs on mammals is "a violation of pesticide laws." It also says "there are no fumigants or toxicants registered for controlling chipmunks," though another paragraph points to Georgia's pesticide database. More on the region: bird feeding in the Southeast.

Ontario: 1 km and 24 hours#

Section 31 of the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act lets you harass, capture or kill a wild animal damaging or about to damage your property, on your property, and Ontario's guidance page (updated December 15, 2025) adds that "a wildlife agent acting on your behalf" may do it for you. The same page sets the limits: no more wildlife "than is necessary to protect your property," and "deal humanely with wildlife that is killed, captured or harassed." A live-caught animal must be released "within 1 kilometre of where they were captured" and "within 24 hours," and onto private land only with the owner's consent. Chipmunks are not among the species with their own rules. Feeder bylaws in Canadian towns are on are bird feeders illegal in Canada.

The one chipmunk federal law protects#

The federal list of endangered and threatened wildlife, 50 CFR 17.11, has one chipmunk entry: the Peñasco least chipmunk (Neotamias minimus atristriatus), endangered "wherever found." The Fish and Wildlife Service's final rule took effect January 9, 2025. It is "now only known to occur in the White Mountains" of New Mexico, with 4,386 acres of critical habitat in Lincoln County. The eastern chipmunk at most feeders is not listed, so no federal law applies to it.

That is the opposite of native birds, where federal law decides almost everything; see is it legal to kill grackles.

Moving a live chipmunk#

A live trap feels like the way around all of this, but relocating wildlife is illegal in many states: New York allows release only where you caught it, Michigan requires a permit, and for squirrels Washington requires a permit and California requires the animal to be killed or released on the spot, as covered on the squirrel relocation page. Where moving is allowed it comes with limits: Ontario's 1 km, Ohio's 24 hours, Indiana's landowner permission. Pennsylvania's "natural setting" clause is the loosest text we found.

Even where it is legal it rarely fixes a feeder, because an empty territory with seed under a feeder fills again. A trap on the ground near a feeder also catches ground-feeding birds, the problem described for house sparrow traps, so check it daily.

What works without killing anything#

Most of the seed a chipmunk carries off was on the ground, so start there. A catch tray from ground feeders and catch trays and a hull-free mix from no-mess and hull-free blends take away the reward; the cleanup routine is in seed mess, hulls and dead grass. A pole baffle sized for squirrels stops them too: see baffles: types, sizing and placement. The same changes cut the mice and rats that come for the same spill.

If seed vanishes overnight it is probably not a chipmunk, since chipmunks work by day; the diagnosis is in my feeder empties overnight.

Where this page stops applying#

• Other states we did not read. Search your wildlife agency's site for "nuisance wildlife" and check what it says about permits and release.
• Local rules. Firearm and air gun discharge, and trap placement, are often set by the town. How to find yours is in neighbors and ordinances.
• Michigan and Indiana we read through the agency and press, not the rule text. Ohio's rule names chipmunks but we did not read its definition of "nuisance wild animal."
• Western chipmunks. The Peñasco least chipmunk is the only one on the federal list, but we did not check state endangered species lists in the West.
• Other provinces we did not read.

This is a reading of statutes, regulations and agency guidance, not legal advice.