Several Supreme Court decisions have confirmed the powers of the individual states to control and manage wildlife. The case which has blocked most of the subsequent efforts to do otherwise was Geer vs. Connecticut in 1996. Justice White included the following in his brief:
Undoubtedly this attribute of government to control the taking of animals ferae naturae , which was thus recognized and enforced by the common law of England, was vested in the colonial governments, where not denied by their charters, or in conflict with grants of the royal prerogative. Its also certain that the power which the colonies thus possessed passed to the states with the separation from the mother country, and remains in them at the present day, in so far as its exercise may be not incompatible with, or restrained by, the rights conveyed to the Federal government by the Constitution.
Subsequent cases have eroded those powers somewhat, but they are almost entirely confined to issues of wildlife in interstate commerce where the federal powers remain supreme.
Last edited by mudhen; 04/25/17.
