So PROBLEMS IN WILD LIFE CONSERVATION 



in game and fish is put just as it may regulate the use of all 

 other property within its borders for the health and safety 

 of its citizens. For example, a state law forbidding posses- 

 sion after the end of the closed season of any kind of game, 

 including that imported into the state, was upheld in New 

 York ex rel. Silz v. Hesterburg, 97 on the grounds that, ". . . 

 dealers in game may sell birds of the domestic kind under 

 claim that they were taken in another country." 



The same reasoning has been used to uphold the state's 

 control over domesticated animals which although of the 

 same species as those usually wild, have been raised in cap- 

 tivity and are the property of the raiser. 98 Thus in aid of 

 the state's control over animals ferae naturae reasonable 

 regulation of those reduced to possession and of domesti- 

 cated animals of the same species is allowed. 



Conclusion: The state, subject to the limitations imposed 

 by the United States constitution, has broad powers to regu- 

 late the taking of animals ferae naturae. This authority 

 flows from the existence in the state of the police power 

 and from the theory that the state, in its sovereign capac- 

 ity, owns wild animals found within its borders. In the 

 exercise of its control of the wild animals, it may make 

 reasonable regulations concerning the breeding, taking, or 

 possession of tame ainmals. 



Turning now from the legal and constitutional aspects of 

 the study, some attention will be given to the administrative 

 structure which has been designed to make state and national 

 regulation effective. In the next three chapters the organ- 

 ization and functions of the principal bureaus of the national 

 government dealing with wild life will be considered, fol- 

 lowed by an examination of the state agencies. 



9 ? 211 U. S. 31 (1908). 



98 Dieterich v. Fargo, 194 N. Y. 359, 87 N. E. 518 (1909). 



