The ownership of wild animals of the state is in the state, in its sovereign capacity for the benefit of all the people of the state. A person may not acquire a property right in wild animals, or destroy them, unless authorized under the game and fish laws or sections 17.47 to 17.498 .
Minn. Stat. § 97A.025
OWNERSHIP OF WILD ANIMALS.
Applied in 6 court decisions — leading case Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians v. Minnesota (1993)
Most recently applied in In the Matter of Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Special Permit No. 16868 (December 21, 2012) issued to Lynn Rogers (July 2015)
1986 c 386 art 1 s 4; 1991 c 309 s 13; 1996 c 410 s 58; 2014 c 290 s 14
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: Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Reproduced from public-domain Minnesota statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.