Definition
The act of pursuing, capturing, or killing wild animals, whether for sport, sustenance, or commercial purposes. In law, hunting is significant primarily as a mechanism by which title to wild animals — which belong to no one (ferae naturae) while at large — is acquired through the act of capture or kill. Beyond property acquisition, hunting is regulated through a dense body of state and federal law governing licenses, seasons, methods, species, and land access.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The act of finding and killing a wild animal, either for sport or with the intention of using its parts to make food, clothes, etc.; also, more broadly, the act of searching for something (a job, a flat).
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The pursuit of game or of wild animals.
Editorial note: The common meaning tracks the legal meaning closely in its core sense, but the legal definition carries additional weight that ordinary usage ignores: the act of hunting is not merely a physical activity but a legally recognized method of acquiring property. Whether a hunter has "taken" game in the legal sense — and thus acquired title — depends on specific doctrinal standards (pursuit alone is generally insufficient), not simply on whether a person was engaged in the activity colloquially called hunting. Regulatory law also defines "hunting" with technical precision for licensing and enforcement purposes, often diverging from how a layperson would describe the same conduct.
Common Confusion
Hunting vs. trapping vs. fishing: Many wildlife regulatory regimes treat these as distinct categories subject to separate licensing, season, and method requirements. A license to hunt does not automatically authorize trapping, and vice versa. Researchers working with regulatory sources must not assume uniform treatment across these related activities.
Hunting vs. title by capture: The act of hunting is the practical activity; the legal doctrine of title by capture (or occupancy) is the property rule that attaches when hunting succeeds. The two concepts are related but not interchangeable. A hunter who wounds an animal and loses it may have been "hunting" without acquiring any property right.
Why It Matters in Research
The legal significance of hunting spans at least three distinct bodies of law that researchers must navigate separately:
Property law. The foundational rule — that pursuing and taking a wild animal confers title by occupancy — is one of the oldest doctrines in Anglo-American common law. Bouvier's captures the essential point: "the chase gives a kind of title by occupancy by which the hunter acquires" rights in the animal. The limits of that rule (how much pursuit is enough, what happens when two hunters pursue the same animal) generated common law disputes and scholarship that remain relevant to understanding wildlife property doctrine.
Regulatory law. Modern hunting law is overwhelmingly statutory and administrative. State fish and game codes define "hunting" with precision, and the definition controls criminal liability for poaching, license violations, and method-of-take offenses. These statutory definitions frequently include conduct — such as the use of bait, dogs, or electronic calls — that lay usage would not necessarily associate with "hunting." Federal law adds layers when migratory birds, endangered species, or federal lands are involved.
Public trust and sovereign ownership. Under the prevailing American doctrine, wild animals are held in trust by the state for the people. This means the right to hunt is a privilege regulated by the sovereign, not an inherent property right. Researchers tracing the evolution of hunting rights will find significant tension between this public trust framework and earlier common law assumptions about individual acquisition by capture.
Historical sources, including Bouvier's, address hunting almost exclusively through the property-by-capture lens and give little attention to the regulatory dimension, which is a creature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Researchers relying solely on historical dictionaries will miss the dominant modern legal context entirely.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary defines hunting as "the act of pursuing and taking wild animals; the chase," and connects it directly to the doctrine of title by occupancy. This reflects the common law framework in which wild animals (ferae naturae) were res nullius — belonging to no one — until reduced to possession through capture or kill. The entry's focus is squarely on the property consequence of the act, consistent with Bouvier's general orientation toward private law doctrines.
What Bouvier's does not address: regulatory licensing, public trust doctrine, federal preemption through statutes such as the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, or the treatment of hunting rights on public versus private land. These omissions are not deficiencies in the historical source so much as markers of how radically the legal landscape shifted after Bouvier's era. The nineteenth-century common law framework treated hunting as a gateway to private property acquisition. The twentieth-century regulatory framework treats it as a licensed privilege within a public trust regime. Researchers must understand both layers to work effectively with historical and modern sources together.
Jurisdictional Note
Hunting law is predominantly state law in the United States, with each state maintaining its own licensing regime, seasons, and species regulations. Federal law governs migratory birds (Migratory Bird Treaty Act), endangered species (Endangered Species Act), and hunting on federal public lands. In England, hunting rights historically attached to land ownership and were a matter of significant class and property law; this background colors older English-origin authorities that appear in American common law sources.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Wildlife Law
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Property by Capture
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Public Lands and Natural Resources