Here's more on an issue we recently covered involving Texas's "depopulation" of captive white-tailed deer in order to curb Chronic Wasting Disease. In the earlier opinion, the court held that the owner of a deer-breeding facility did not have a property interest in the deer, and thus could not assert a due process or takings claim.
The court in Young v. Texas Parks & Wildlife Dep't, No. 15-24-00052-CV (Apr. 24, 2025) reached the same conclusion. We're posting the latest opinion because it elaborates on the "ferae naturae" issue, and every law student and lawyer's old (very old) friend, the rule of capture.
The court rejected the owner's arguments:
Comparing the facts in Tyler to those here, Young argues that the common law doctrines of ferae naturae and the rule of capture existed long before the Texas Legislature stepped in and began regulating white-tailed deer. In doing so, the Legislature “legislated away” his property rights just like Minnesota’s Legislature did when it gave the State the statutory right to retain the proceeds from the sale of real property to satisfy a delinquent tax bill. We disagree for several reasons.....Unlike the Minnesota law, the Texas deer breeding statutes do not regulate property in which someone has an existing vested interest (real property). They regulate a wild animal that, indulging Young’s argument, would not become a deer breeder’s property until after exercising dominion over it. That extra step to supposedly achieving a protected property interest did not exist in Tyler.Second, we cannot accept Young’s implied invitation to ignore the historical context from which Texas’s deer breeding laws derive. Early America “welcomed the rule of capture with open arms,” but “vigorous capture rules fostered by early America’s pioneer spirit resulted in the extinction of many species in the New World and the depletion of populations of many more.” State legislatures responded by enacting legislation aimed at protecting wildlife populations, which courts upheld using a “uniquely American justification for regulation”: the public trust doctrine. Under the public trust doctrine, the State’s natural resources are held in trust for the benefit of the people. As the Third Court of Appeals explained in Bailey v. Smith, Texas “essentially codified” the doctrine in 1907 when it enacted the predecessor to Section 1.011(a) of the Parks and Wildlife Code.....The State’s authority to regulate wildlife as part of its police power to protect this natural resource is beyond question.
Slip op. at 7-9 (footnotes omitted).
Check it out.
Young v. Texas Parks & Wildlife Dep't, No. 15-24-00052-CV (Tex. Ct. App. Apr. 24, 2025)
