Animals wild by nature are the subjects of ownership, while living, only when on the land of the person claiming them, or when tamed, or taken and held in possession, or disabled and immediately pursued.
Cal. Civ. Code § 656
NATURE OF PROPERTY
Applied in 4 court decisions — leading case Kellogg v. King (1896)
Most recently applied in 234 Cal. App. 3d 954 - People v. Brady (September 1991)
Enacted 1872.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: California Legislative Information. Reproduced from public-domain California statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.