Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 101, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1916 — Protection of Game Birds. [ARTICLE]

Protection of Game Birds.

In the case of State vs. McCulUgh, reported from Kansas, the court declares unconstitutional a federal statute for protection of migratory game birds. There have been three other rulings on similar statutes before, two of which agree and one dissents from the Kansas case. The opinion says in part: “The natural flight of wild fowl from one point to another does not constitute ‘commerce,’ unless that word be expanded beyond any significance heretofore given it. Whatever other element may be spared from a definition of this term, it has not been heretofore directed or affected by human intelligence. But, if the fact were otherwise, the circumstances that birds of a particular species do not habitually remain throughout the year in the same state could hardly bring them within the control of congress on the theory that they were thereby impressed with a national character as the subject of interstate commerce. ... The habit of migration does not vest in the federal government the title to the animal possessing it. Wild animals are declared to be subject to the control of the state —to belong to the people of the state —and the rule has been repeatedly applied to migratory birds.”