Same thing here. Except you can't shoot withing a certain amount of feet from a residence. Or a road, and not within some city limits. Pretty standard stuff.
I find in America it is more a east/west coast thing (in general) but it is absolutely true up here in The Great White North - Canada. More so in the bigger urban centres.
In Maine, unless you are using the wood for your own use (firewood/logs for your own construction), you need a Forest Harvest Permit. It used to be that these were collected to generate stumpage prices, and to see how much wood was being harvested in the State of Maine, but that really did not bring in revenue, so it sort of morphed. If you check the little box that says "500 acres or more", you will be guaranteed a visit from the Dept of Environmental Protection and the Maine Forest Service to see if any wet lands are on your property and if you are violating them. You are also assigned a tax called the Forest Fire Suppression Fee automatically, even though residential burning causes more fires then logging. As for the collection of useful data, they switched to a less intrusive "short form' that does not include the original data, and if your forestry permit has a Forest Management Plan, a Forester listed, and small acreage, you are likely to get the short form, so they are not even collecting the date that the original law called for. When I asked a Forest Ranger as to why, he said the bigger loggers were at least working and could afford the fines. The guy was at least honest.
On the Federal level, things really get stupid... I don't have any perennial streams on my land, nor do I have any wetlands, but I do have "Forested Wetlands". Now in these areas I have the right to cut any tree, any place I wish and even build logging roads. I can even bulldoze stumps out of the way so I can make roads every 20 feet according to the Wetland Determination Officer. BUT...the second I say I am going to use the land for farming, I am in violation of the Swampbusters Act. I can cut any tree I want, but I cannot bulldoze any stump. This is enforceable not only by the Maine Dept of Environmental Protection, but also the Environmental Protection Agency (Federal), and now thanks to the new ruling by the Supreme Court, the Army Corp of Engineers. Before, the Army Corp of Engineers only had jurisdiction over "Navigable Waterways", but they determined that due to water quality, they could manage water up to 4000 feet above sea level any water body. This is rather ridiculous. I could file an appeal for exemption, BUT the Army Corp of Engineers is understaffed, so the waiting period is up to 2 years before they could even look at my complaint! I also have an issue with the Wetland Determination Officer. He came on my place and noted it was wetland, but the thing was, in 1994 I had bulldozed a road across the forest, but because the area is flat, the water had no place to run so it collected. What he was calling a wet land was all man-made. He also said I had soil 15 feet to ledge, but as I logged the area, my bulldozer grousers were spinning because they could not get a bite on solid ledge rock...and my grousers are 3 inches high...in other words the ledge was 3 inches down not 15 feet. Granted the guy has only been to my farm a few times, and I have lived here all my life, but I call into question how much of an expert he really is.
