BANGOR (AP) – Landowners are closing their trails to all-terrain vehicle operators to minimize trail damage as mud season arrives across much of Maine.

Mud season is eagerly awaited by many ATV riders who like nothing more than to get splattered in mud. But mud season, the time of year when melting snows and spring rains turn much of Maine into a soupy quagmire, also is when four-wheel ATVs can do the most damage to saturated soils.

After years of complaints from property owners who say ATVs are destroying their lands, state officials passed new ATV legislation last year to give landowners more power to protect their property.

The new law carries hefty fines and loss of state licenses and permits of ATV operators who ride on property that has been closed to the machines.

To restrict a trail temporarily, landowners need to post both ends of the trail on their property with red-and-white signs that can be acquired for free from the Bureau of Parks and Lands. The signs say the trail is closed because of saturated soils and have a space for an expected reopening date.

Members of ATV Maine, a statewide organization and advocate for ATV riders and clubs, and property owners are temporarily closing trails or soon will close trails.

“We need to get the word out that mud season is here,” said Brian Bronson, recreational vehicle coordinator for the Bureau of Parks and Lands. “Most of the trails are in fact closed or are being closed. Most of the club trails will be posted closed, and all of our rail trails and other trails in the state are being posted.”

Landowners always could post their land to limit ATV travel, but before the laws were passed, there were few consequences for violators, ATV Maine spokesman David Barter said.

“You’re still going to have the people who refuse to adhere, but at least there is a law so if they’re caught, they can be written up and made to pay a fine,” he said. “It doesn’t take three or four or five four-wheelers to roll through and upset the apple cart and destroy a trail – it only takes one.”

Most trails will reopen by mid-May, state officials estimate.

“My own trail master just hates like hell to close the trail because he loves to go play in the mud,” said Barter, who also is the president of a Bath ATV club. “But we have to do it to protect the trails.”

Bath club members have installed snow fencing in several areas to prevent travel on wet trails.

People caught operating an ATV on a closed trail or without landowner permission, abusing another person’s property, operating to endanger, operating recklessly or while under the influence of intoxicants, or trying to elude or failing to stop for law enforcement automatically lose their hunting, fishing, guide, taxidermy or other Inland Fisheries and Wildlife licenses and face a mandatory fine of at least $1,000.

The new ATV laws also require riders to ask permission before using a trail and to get written permission if a trail passes through cropland, pastures or an orchard.

The measures obligate ATV operators to get permission from every landowner on every trail they ride unless they are ATV-marked trails, said Paul Jacques, deputy commissioner of the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.