## Facts

- Steven Simpson and other Oregon-licensed game ranchers owned captive exotic animals, including barbary sheep, fallow deer, ibex, Russian boars, and water buffalo, that were lawfully purchased or bred in captivity on their private ranches.
- The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) adopted a regulation expanding the administrative definition of “wildlife” to include all species “generally found in a wild state,” which brought the ranchers’ captive exotic species within the agency’s “wildlife” category.
- Oregon’s wildlife statute provides: “Wildlife is the property of the state,” and bars taking or possessing wildlife in violation of wildlife laws or rules (ORS 498.002(1)).
- The ranchers believed the expanded “wildlife” definition, combined with the “property of the state” language, meant Oregon now owned their captive animals.
- The ranchers sought a declaratory ruling from ODFW on whether Oregon held an ownership interest in their animals because they were regulated as “wildlife.”
- ODFW issued a declaratory ruling concluding Oregon did not acquire an ownership interest in the ranchers’ lawfully held captive animals merely because they fell within the agency’s definition of “wildlife.”
- The ranchers sought judicial review in the Oregon Court of Appeals, arguing ODFW’s reading of ORS 498.002(1) was legally wrong.

## Issues

1. Whether ORS 498.002(1)’s statement that “wildlife is the property of the state,” together with ODFW’s rules defining the ranchers’ captive exotics as “wildlife,” gives Oregon a proprietary ownership interest in those animals.
2. Whether ODFW correctly interpreted the statute in its declaratory ruling when it concluded Oregon did not own the ranchers’ lawfully acquired captive animals.

## Decision

- The Oregon Court of Appeals affirmed ODFW’s declaratory ruling.
- The court held that the “wildlife is the property of the state” language in ORS 498.002(1) does not grant Oregon private-law title to all animals treated as “wildlife,” including captive animals lawfully possessed by private parties.
- The court read the statute’s “property of the state” phrase as describing Oregon’s sovereign authority to regulate and protect wildlife for the public, rather than a transfer of ownership of specific animals to the state.
- Because defining the ranchers’ animals as “wildlife” did not automatically vest ownership in Oregon, ODFW did not err in concluding the state lacked an ownership interest in the ranchers’ animals.

## Legal Principles

- Statutory statements that “wildlife is the property of the state” are commonly understood as expressing sovereign regulatory authority and a trustee-like duty to conserve wildlife for the public, not conventional chattel ownership of each individual animal.
- Statutory meaning is determined from text in context; ORS 498.002(1) links the “property of the state” phrase to limits on taking and possession “in violation” of wildlife laws and rules, which fits a regulatory function rather than a title-transfer rule.
- Courts avoid interpretations that would divest private property interests without clear legislative direction; treating lawfully purchased captive animals as automatically state-owned would require clearer authorization than the general “property of the state” phrase.
- On judicial review of an agency declaratory ruling, the court reviews whether the agency’s construction of the statute is legally correct; here, the agency’s reading aligned with the statute’s context and purpose.

## Conclusion

The Oregon Court of Appeals affirmed ODFW’s declaratory ruling that Oregon does not gain a proprietary ownership interest in lawfully owned captive exotic animals merely because agency rules classify them as “wildlife”; the statutory “wildlife is the property of the state” language reflects the state’s regulatory and conservation authority, not automatic state title to privately possessed animals.


Simpson v. Department of Fish and Wildlife, 255 P.3d 565 (2011)