hunters and landowners in Pa.- interesting rights and responsibilities under laww

"the lying liberal from Lancaster" wrote in
message ups.com...

I found some interesting info on property rights in the state of Pa.-
turns out the right to hunt and fish on open property is protected by
statute, in favor of the hunter/fisherman, in the state of Pa. . . .
.. . .
These laws were written so someone like Bill Gates with
his $80 billion is assets, can't buy up all the open land in a specific
state, and close it all to public access and recreation. Without these
posting statutes, we would live in a fiefdom/feudal state, where only
the well monied enjoyed property rights and the outdoors.

Another way of looking at the history is to suppose:
1. PA legislators of say 1750-1800 knew English law of
the period gave landowners title as property to the
wild animals living on their land (except for some species
reserved to the king or feudal lord); and was enforced
severely from the 18th century onward;
2. and probably knew these laws were not universal.
E.g. even in feudal times Swedish law guaranteed the
common people certain rights to be on private land and
to collect there firewood or small game (e.g. rabbits); and
3. knew traditional North American Indian game laws were
something like traditional communism, viz. no one could
or should restrict a hungry man's feeding his family on
whatever the forest produced in the wild.

So it seems possible that PA legislators aimed to preserve
#3 in America, or perhaps preferred #2 over #1.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)