CAMDEN (AP) – The 150-year-old stuffed gull that adorned a restaurant’s upstairs dining room for the past two decades will soon have a new home in a Searsport museum but may be able to reclaim its familiar roost during the summer.

Johanna Tutone, owner of Cappy’s Chowder House, said she was pleased that U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe’s office had brokered a deal that resolves her legal problems surrounding the greater black backed gull.

Acting in response to a customer complaint, agents from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service visited the restaurant in October to confiscate the bird that is mounted under glass and surrounded by an ornate frame.

Tutone learned that she had run afoul of a 1918 federal law that prohibits the purchase, sale or possession of migratory birds and that she could, if convicted, be subject to up to six months in jail and a $500 fine.

The Victorian “objet d’art,” which Tutone had bought at an estate sale, had been created in 1854, decades before the law took effect, but nonetheless was not exempt.

Under the agreement arranged by Snowe’s office, Tutone will relinquish the bird to federal officials, who in turn will lend it to the Penobscot Marine Museum.

The museum, which is scheduled to receive the gift Thursday, will be able to lend it to the restaurant for the summer.

Buoyed by the arrangement, Tutone plans to host a “sea gull party” to raise money for the museum. While somewhat saddened and angered by her problems with the government, she has tried to maintain a sense of humor about the incident and appears satisfied with how it turned out.

“I wish none of this had ever happened, but I think it’s a good resolution,” she said.