Game laws

Game laws are statutes which regulate the right to pursue and take or kill certain kinds of fish and wild animal (game). Their scope can include the following: restricting the days to harvest fish or game, restricting the number of animals per person, restricting species harvested, and limiting weapons and fishing gear used. Hunters, fishermen and lawmakers generally agree that the purposes of such laws is to balance the needs for preservation and harvest and to manage both environment and populations of fish and game. Game laws can provide a legal structure to collect license fees and other money which is used to fund conservation efforts as well as to obtain harvest information used in wildlife management practice.

In Great Britain the game laws have developed out of the forest laws, which in the time of the Norman kings were very oppressive. Under William the Conqueror, it was as great a crime to kill one of the king's deer as to kill one of his subjects. A certain rank and standing, or the possession of a certain amount of property, were for a long time qualifications indispensably necessary to confer upon any one the right of pursuing and killing game. Game laws such as the British Night Poaching Act 1828 and Game Act 1831, both still in force in modified form, and still more their predecessors, such as the notorious Black Act of 1723, enacted savage penalties for poaching. But the Game Act installed under William IV did greatly mitigate the game laws: the necessity for any qualification except the possession of a game certificate was abolished, and the right was given to anyone to kill game on their own land, or on that of another with permission.

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