GAME AND WILD-FUR PRODUCTION AND UTILIZATION 43 



of them like to hunt and to share the game with their friends. But 

 when wildlife becomes abundant enough to do appreciable damage, 

 the farmer wants compensation or the right to control the game on 

 his land. When hunters or trappers become a nuisance, he wants 

 help in controlling them. Farmers' complaints about game damage 

 are often found to be aimed at the hunter- and-trapper nuisance and 

 not the actual damage inflicted by the game. 



Many of the problems associated with public hunting on private 

 land originate in our present-day concept of the legal status and 

 ownership of game and wild fur. The law of ownership and regu- 

 lation of wild game, as it existed in the Roman and early common 

 law of England is well stated in the following excerpts from the 

 opinion of Justice White in the case of Geer vs. Connecticut (161, 

 U. S. 519, 522-528) ; "From the earliest traditions the right to reduce 

 animals ferae naturae to possession has been subject to the control 

 of the law giving power. * * * No restriction, it would hence 

 seem, was placed by the Roman law upon the power of the individual 

 to reduce game of which he was the owner in common with other 

 citizens, to possession, although the Institutes of Justinian sometimes 

 recognized the right of an owner of land to forbid another from 

 killing game on his property, as indeed this right was impliedly 

 admitted by the Digest in the passage just cited. 1 ' 



The colonists who settled in America carried with them knowledge 

 of the common law of England. After the American Revolution 

 the question arose as to whether the newly independent colonies had 

 a common law. It was decided that the common law of England 

 plus English statutes before the Revolution, so far as applicable to 

 our conditions, constituted the common law. Thus the State ac- 

 quired the title of the King, and so it has been held uniformly in 

 this country that the wild game is owned by the State in its sovereign 

 capacity in trust for the people. 



In the days of expansion, exploration, and settlement, the wildlife 

 of the Nation was an important source of sustenance to the colonists, 

 explorers, and early settlers. So it was decided that the governing 

 power should provide in all ways proper for the utilization of this 

 natural resource by the people. At that time much of the land was 

 in public ownership and it was largely upon these lands that wildlife 

 was produced and hunted. 



As the ownership of game by the State in its sovereign capacity 

 in trust for the benefit of the people rests upon the common law 

 and not upon the statutes, the decisions reached in the United States 

 Supreme Court, the Federal courts^ and the appellate courts of the 

 48 States, in themselves fix the legal status of wildlife. Many of 

 these decisions, however, were reached and promulgated under cir- 

 cumstances that no longer exist. For example, it is estimated that 

 approximately 75 percent of the land in the United States is pri- 

 vately owned and that at least an equal proportion of game is 

 produced on lands in private ownership. 



Laws and regulations promulgated to restrict kill are designed to 

 perpetuate the species or distribute adequately opportunities for the 

 citizens to acquire their proportionate share of the game. Although 

 the States make provision whereby the private landowner may exer- 

 cise his right to control trespass, the laws in that respect are frequently 



