Any person owning or leasing and operating any property, and any employee of that person, may, while on that person's premises, kill and take a furbearer that is worrying, wounding, or killing the domestic animals or livestock on the property, or destroying or mutilating agricultural crops or fruit trees on the property; or otherwise causing clear-and-immediate economic damage to any property belonging to that person; or creating a potential health hazard; provided that, except in the case of rabbits, the carcass of the furbearer shall be presented to the department within twenty-four (24) hours of taking. The animal may then be possessed by the landowner or lessee for the use of the immediate family of the landowner or lessee, and shall not be sold or offered for sale, except by special permission of the director.
R.I. Gen. Laws § 20-16-2