GAME COMMISSIONS AND WARDENS. 



THEIR APPOINTMENT, POWERS, AND DUTIES. 



PART I.— GENERAL DISCUSSION. 



GAME OFFICIAIiS. 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE STATE GAME COMMISSION AND WARDENSHIP. 



The offices of game commissioner and State game warden of the 

 present day are not the outcome of spontaneous growth, but the result 

 of numerous experiments and modifications necessitated b^^ the grow- 

 ing importance of the subject of preserving game. Originally game 

 protection was left to sheriffs and other local officers, and later, after 

 the appointment of fish wardens, was included incidentally among the 

 duties of that office. In Arkansas the game laws are still enforced by 

 the local constabulary, and in California the protection of game is 

 still, as originally, under the charge of the board of fish commissioners. 



The development of the office of State game warden from that of fish 

 warden occupied a period of nearly half a century and was marked by 

 various experimental steps. Maine was apparently the first State to 

 provide a special officer charged with the duty of protecting fish. 

 Under a law passed in 1843 the governor was required to appoint 

 three 'fish wardens' for each of the counties of Penobscot, Han(;ock, 

 and \Yaldo, to serve three years, and to meet annually at Bangor for 

 the transaction of business connected with the supervision of the 

 salmon, shad, and alewifc fisheries of Penobscot Bay and River, The 

 idea seemed to meet with popular approval, for in the following year, 

 1844, it was extended in a modified form by the passage of a law requir- 

 ing the towns of Gushing, St. George, Thomaston, and Warren to 

 elect fish wardens annually (two in Warren and one in each of the 

 others) to supervise the fisheries in Georges River. In 1852, nine 

 years after the adoption of the fish-warden system and twenty-two 

 years after the passage of the first law protecting moose and deer in 

 the State, the legislature of Maine applied the new plan to the protection 

 of game by authorizing the governor to appoint a 'moose warden' 

 for each of the counties of Oxford, Franklin, Somerset, Penobscot, 

 Sagadahoc, Aroostook, and Washington, whose duties included the pro- 

 tection of deer as well as moose. Again the plan seemed to meet with 



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