Bradshaw
Bears and blackbirds and big-mouth bass are Louisiana citizens of a sort, and that is why the state can make you get licenses to fish and hunt, and can tell you what you can and cannot catch. That’s also why the birds and the beasts may have better protection than we do.
Presumably wild game has always held that “citizenship,” but it was made official in 1908 when the state legislature was looking for a legal basis to create a Board of Commissioners for the Protection of Birds, Game and Fish, and to give it the right to regulate hunting and fishing.
That board and a Louisiana Oyster Commission were consolidated into the Conservation Commission of Louisiana in 1912. That commission regulated wildlife affairs until 1944, when the present Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission was created.
Bradshaw
Each of these agencies was authorized to regulate hunting and fishing because, as noted in an early Conservation Commission compilation of “Laws for the Conservation of Birds, Game and Fur-Bearing Animals and Fresh-Water Fish,” the state holds “ownership and title to all fish, birds, and wild quadrupeds found in the State of Louisiana, or in the waters under the jurisdiction of the state.”
That pretty red cardinal that visits your bird feeder every day may think its wild and free, but the law says its owned by the state and you’d better not mess with it.
The part about furbearing animals became important about this time of year in the days when trapping was still a big part of the south Louisiana economy. The early law required that on October 1 “each and every person engaged in hunting, catching, or trapping wild fur animals” had to fork over $2 for a license. The fee for nonresidents was $15.
The license allowed trapping of mink, otters, muskrats, raccoons, beavers, skunks, foxes, and possums during a season that ran from November 1 to February 15. Most of the animals could be trapped only during that season, but (in the days before nutria were introduced) the muskrat held first-place honors as a wetland nuisance.
The law allowed it to be hunted “at any time when found within five miles of any levee” or at any place and time “whenever in the opinion of the Conservation Commission muskrats are causing or might cause damage to cultivated or pastured lands.”
Even the ducks and geese that live someplace else most of the year fall under state ownership when they migrate to or through the state. I’m not sure who owns them when they are in Canada.
Whoever owned them when we first began to make game laws, the state was a lot more liberal about shooting them then than we are today.
The 1914 daily bag limit allowed for 25 ducks or poule d’eau and 15 “of any other game birds,” which included geese, brant, grosbecs, mud hens, woodcock, sandpipers, pheasants, partridges, grouse, prairie chickens, quail, doves, and red-wing blackbirds. The two exceptions were turkeys and snipe. The turkey limit was one per day, but you could shoot up to 50 snipe. The limit this year is 6 ducks and only 8 snipe.
As far as I can find, the legislature has never passed judgement on ownership of the insects that flitter and crawl around the state, but it seems to me that the same rationale would apply to them as to our other wild critters. If the state does hold title to them, I would strongly recommend that it sell off its stock of mosquitoes, fire ants, and a few other of their annoying cousins.
Maybe we could pass a law requiring anyone who wants to buy our crawfish to take an equal number of stinging bugs. I’d be more than willing to sign a petition to get things rolling, and I’m sure I wouldn’t be alone.
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at [email protected] or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.
