
Don’t Mess with the Birds - Petiver
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/dont-mess-with-the-birds
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alexbock
The Migratory Bird Treaty Act is very interesting from a legal standpoint.
Regulating wild birds is not one of the enumerated powers of Congress, but the
federal government entered a treaty with Canada to protect migratory birds and
successfully argued in the Supreme Court that it could enter such a treaty
despite not having the power to enforce it, and that by entering the treaty it
gained the power to enforce it. This is vaguely reminiscent of the Five Eyes
reciprocal spying arrangement.

During the 1930s there were some other interesting attempts at regulating
things through complicated "taxation" systems, including marijuana and
machine-guns (only the latter law survives today).

Creative legislative techniques like this don't seem to occur as often now
that Congress has settled on just declaring everything to be "interstate
commerce" (which is how the modern drug laws work, and if a migratory bird law
were passed today I'm sure they would consider birds that cross state lines to
be involved in interstate commerce).

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js2
The most recent episode of the “More Perfect” podcast (which discusses Supreme
Court cases) is about the commerce clause:

[https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/one-nation-under-
money/](https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/one-nation-under-money/)

(No transcript unfortunately.)

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tzs
For anyone curious, here are the birds in the US covered by the Migratory Bird
Treat Act [1]. A good first approximation is that if you see a wild bird, and
it is not a European Starling, House Sparrow, Pigeon, or a bird that you can
get a hunting license for, it is probably covered.

There are some curious state laws regarding birds. For instance, California
Penal Code, § 598:

> Every person who, within any public cemetery or burying ground, kills,
> wounds, or traps any bird, or destroys any bird's nest other than swallows'
> nests, or removes any eggs or young birds from any nest, is guilty of a
> misdemeanor.

Why an exception for swallows' nests?

[1] [https://www.fws.gov/birds/management/managed-
species/migrato...](https://www.fws.gov/birds/management/managed-
species/migratory-bird-treaty-act-protected-species.php)

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dgllghr
It's ruffed grouse, not ruffled grouse!

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justherefortart
Good old Cheney family. Degenerates top to bottom (RTFA).

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e40
I would say that family has an extreme selfish gene. While I have extreme
dislike for all of them, I don't know I would call them _degenerates_.

