Wildlife as Common Property, and Wildlife as State Property

In one line

A wild animal running free belongs to nobody; the moment it is hunted, killed or found dead it belongs to the Government, and section 39 says so.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: section 39(1) provides that every wild animal, other than vermin, which is hunted under section 11, section 29(1) or section 35(6), or kept or bred in captivity or hunted in contravention of the Act, or found dead, or killed by mistake, and every animal article, trophy, uncured trophy or meat derived from such an animal in respect of which an offence has been committed, and imported ivory and articles made from it in respect of which an offence has been committed, and every vehicle, vessel, weapon, trap or tool used for committing an offence and seized under the Act, shall be the property of the State Government; and where the animal was hunted in a sanctuary or National Park declared by the Central Government, it is the property of the Central Government.

The question, and the classical answer

Before the Act, a wild animal was res nullius. Nobody owned it; the first taker acquired it by occupation. That is the classical rule set out in the chapter on the Roman categories, and it is why hunting was historically a matter of trespass on the land rather than theft of the animal.

Res nullius is not common property. A thing owned by nobody can be appropriated by anybody, and that is precisely the open access condition Hardin described. A wild animal is the cleanest example in the whole of resource law of the tragedy of the commons, because the hunter who kills it takes the entire benefit and shares the loss to the stock with everybody.

Section 39 abolishes the classical rule. It does not merely regulate hunting; it removes the reward. The hunter who kills gets nothing, because what he has killed is the Government's from the moment it is dead.

Reading section 39 clause by clause

Clause (a), the animal. Every wild animal other than vermin, which is either

hunted under a permission, being section 11, hunting of a dangerous or disabled animal, section 29(1), destruction in a sanctuary under a permit, or section 35(6), the same in a National Park; or

kept or bred in captivity or hunted in contravention of the Act or any rule or order; or

found dead, or killed by mistake.

So all four routes lead to the same place. Lawful hunting, unlawful hunting, natural death and accident. The animal never becomes anybody's private property, and that is the sentence to write in an answer.