Dad Is Semi-domesticating An Army Of Squirrels And Making Neighborhood Enemies

Location: Maryland.

Over the summer, my dad and stepmom began feeding and attempting to train squirrels that would hang out in the tree in their front yard. This turned into luring the squirrels to climb their arms, eat out of their hands, and even come inside the house briefly to get nuts and other food. They greatly enjoy the Disney princess aspect of this and have previously raised ducklings in the house.

The neighbors are not thrilled. They've been asking for months for the squirrel-feeding to stop. I don't have a lot of detail on the specific issues they're seeing, but I know at least one person has had squirrels nesting on their house lately. A handful of neighbors have expressed concerns, so it's clearly affecting several people.

After months of being told that the feeding would not stop, the neighbors have resorted to trapping and even discussing poisoning the squirrels to end this saga. After one neighbor trapped a squirrel, my dad called the DNR on them and had them warned about trapping without a permit.

This is where the question comes in: What kinds of legal issues are they inviting by a) doing this at all and b) escalating to DNR/law enforcement? My dad is certain it's totally legal to be doing this, but is there a point at which they could be civilly or even criminally liable for this behavior?

On a moral level, they obviously shouldn't be doing this. At the same time, I'd hate to see them end up in trouble over something so stupid.