56 PROBLEMS IN WILD LIFE CONSERVATION 



The facts in the Geer Case were these: a Connecticut 

 statute forbade the possession of game birds at any time, 

 no matter whether taken during the open season under license 

 or not, provided that they had been acquired for the purpose 

 of transporting them from the state. Geer, as the law per- 

 mitted, had bought some game birds from a person who pre- 

 sumably had taken them legally. The sole question before 

 the court was whether the state of Connecticut had the 

 power to regulate the killing of game within her borders so 

 as to confine its use to the limits of the state, and forbid its 

 transportation outside of the state. As part of that major 

 question the point was raised whether the game had become 

 an article of interstate commerce, thus whether the state law 

 forbidding its export placed a burden on interstate commerce 

 contrary to the commerce clause of the national constitution. 



The United States Supreme Court speaking through Jus- 

 tice White held that the state owned wild animals in its 

 sovereign capacity for the benefit of all its people. The 

 individual might legally take game, said the court, only upon 

 such conditions as the state chose to impose. In this case 

 the qualification prohibiting the game from becoming an 

 article of external commerce, entered into and formed a part 

 of every transaction. Thus at no time did the game become 

 an article of interstate commerce within the meaning of the 

 commerce clause. 



Justice White, who wrote the decision, 11 attempted to 

 show that the governing power in all countries has had the 

 well-recognized right to regulate the taking of animals ferae 

 naturae for the common good, i. e. under the police power. 

 Not until he reaches the discussion of the English common 

 law does he introduce the idea of ownership by the sovereign 

 power, stating, 



11 Justices Field and Harlan dissented while Justices Brewer and 

 Peckham not having heard the case took no part in the decision. 



