SPHERE OF STATE GOVERNMENT 55 



ship. 7 For example, the Minnesota Supreme Court in State 

 v. Rodman? two years before the Geer Case, said : 



We take it to be the correct doctrine in this country that 

 ownership of wild animals, so far as they are capable of owner- 

 ship, is in the state, not as proprietor, but in its sovereign 

 capacity, as the representative, and for the benefit, of all its 

 people in common. The preservation of such animals as are 

 adapted to consumption as food, or to any other useful purpose, 

 is a matter of public interest ; and it is within the police power 

 of the state, as the representative of the people in their united 

 sovereignty, to enact such laws as will best preserve such 

 game . . . 



The cases decided by the United States Supreme Court 

 regarding animals ferae naturae prior to the Geer Case 

 might be distinguished on the grounds that they involved an 

 essentially different principle. McCready v. Virginia 9 con- 

 cerned the taking of oysters from the tide waters of Vir- 

 ginia. The court following the precedent of Martin v. 

 IVadell, 10 which held that the ownership of the land under 

 water from the low-water mark to the three-mile limit had 

 passed from the English crown to the states when the colo- 

 nies declared their independence, ruled that the state, there- 

 fore, owned the animals ferae naturae living in those waters. 

 The Geer Case, however, involved wild animals living on 

 land not owned by the state and thus was essentially dif- 

 ferent. The rule applied in the McCready Case would not 

 necessarily apply in the Geer Case. 



7 The first mention of the ownership theory in American cases that 

 the writer has found occurred in Magner v. The People, 97 111. 320 (1881). 

 8 58 Minn. 393, 59 N. W. 1098 (1894). 



9 94 U. S. 395 (1876) ; Manchester v. Massachusetts, 139 U. S. 240; 

 ii Sup. Ct. 559 (1890) regarding the power of the state to regulate the 

 taking of fish within the bays of Massachusetts, could be distinguished 

 on similar grounds. 



10 1 6 Peters 367 (1842). 



