Court Opinion

ID: 7820013
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-07 17:50:42.348723+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:30:42.935525
License: Public Domain

John A. Fogleman, Justice, dissenting. I respectfully dissent, but I cannot join with those who would overrule Hampton v. Arkansas State Game & Fish Comm’n, 218 Ark. 757, 238 S.W. 2d 950. On the record before the court in that case it seems to me that the court was right. Amendment 35 does not authorize the exercise of the power of eminent domain .to acquire lands on which to establish a public duck hunting project. That was the only question presented and the only one decided. In Hampton, the complaint alleged that the Commission had the obligation, duty, authority and responsibility of acquiring, developing and maintaining hunting and fishing facilities for the use and benefit of sportsmen and that the taking was in the discharge of that duty. Clearly, it does not have that duty but no other purpose for the taking in Hampton was alleged or proved. The landowner’s challenge was that the Commission did not have the power to condemn the lands for the purposes stated in the complaint and that the Commission did not have the obligation, duty, authority or responsibility of acquiring, developing or maintaining public hunting facilities. It was stipulated at the beginning of the trial that the question to be presented to the court was whether the Commission had the right to condemn the lands “for the purposes shown by the pleadings and proof for such condemnation.” The decree in the chancery court recited the stipulation. The executive secretary of the Commission testified that the number one purpose of the plan in its inception and execution was “duck hunting and shooting.” The report of the Commission’s Coordinator of Federal Aid stated that the Commission’s greatest possible accomplishment was in the “acquisition of suitable areas for public hunting, that “we are now ready for the final push which will make one public hunting ground an accomplished fact.’’“The only possibility . . . is through the purchase of public hunting areas,” and “In the spring of 1946, an investigation was made of the possibility of establishing a public shooting ground in the Bayou Meto area . . . The area is physically well adapted for use as a duck hunting area and has an excellent reputation in this respect.” As the court said in Hampton, a public shooting ground can hardly be likened to a hatchery, sanctuary, refuge or reservation. It was conceded in Hampton that only one-fourth of the area would ever be used as a refuge. The opinion concluded: ... A careful study of the entire Amendment No. 35 shows that it is not the duty of the Commission to acquire lands by eminent domain in order to establish shooting grounds where the public may kill migratory fowl. That is the basic question in this case; and we hold that the Commission does not have such power. This is a different record indeed. In the declaration of taking, it was alleged that the public use for which the property was taken was to facilitate the control and mangement of a wildlife management area. On the face of the pleadings the taking was for purposes stated in Amendment 35. Bill Gaines, Real Estate Officer for the Commission, who has a bachelor’s degree in biology with special courses in wildlife management, forestry and surveying, testified about the purposes of the taking, as did Lawrence N. Owens, District Game Biologist for the Commission. Their testimony may be summarized: There is a green tree reservoir on the Bayou Meto Wildlife Management Area, which is controlled by two levees, the upper Vallier School levee and the lower Vallier School levee. The upper levee has very little watershed and is utilized to keep water off the Gill property, holding that reservoir to 551.53 acres. The normal pool elevation to afford an adequate waterfowl habitat in the winter in the upper area (1,243 acres) is 1,785 feet mean sea level, but when the water reaches this level, it overflows on the Gill property and another tract. The Commission would like to maintain an area of 3,566.67 acres as a green tree reservoir, and would use all the Gill land, other than that upon which the water would spread, as a buffer zone for excess runoff and excess water in the area. The acquisition of this piece of property is necessary, useful or convenient for the use of the Commission in the exercise of its duties for the following reasons: The acquisition of this piece of property from a management standpoint of managing the green tree reservoir for a wildlife and waterfowl habitat, this property is necessary to act partially as a buffer zone when you have high flows into the area and not capable of letting the water out of the basin quick enough and getting on this private land and also a portion of it to be a permanent pool for waterfowl habitat without hampering of the management of the entire upper green tree reservoir. Without the acquisition of this property it would be almost futile to even attempt to manage a green tree reservoir in the upper Vallier School area. The terrain is so fiat that raising the water level six inches increases the size of the green tree reservoir from 551 acres to 1,-243 acres, but managing the green tree reservoir here is almost useless because pa vate property is damaged when water is raised to the higher level. The maximum manageable green tree area includes a portion of the Gill property. The primary purpose is not to grow grain on the Gill property but to acquire fee title so the management of the Bayou Meto Wildlife Management Area can be carried out. The purpose of having water in the green tree reservoir is to provide winter habitat for waterfowl, principally ducks. No designated area is set aside in the Wildlife Management Area for hatching and raising ducks. Part of it, the Wrape plantation, consisting of 500 acres, is closed to duck hunting, except for the last three days of the season. The rest of the area is closed to duck hunting for half of each day, so that ducks will remain in the area throughout the winter. Constant harassment would cause them to leave. Some mallards remain in Arkansas throughout the winter. The waterfowl is dependent upon wintering grounds as much as upon rearing ponds in Canada and the northern part of the United States. Providing for them to remain and feed in the winter is part of conservation. Arkansas, along the Mississippi River and in the Stuttgart area, has been a traditional mallard winter ground during migration. Because the area is a basin which floods, it has been used primarily for waterfowl management. The primary purpose is to attract ducks during the winer months and the provision of hunting along with that is within the realm of good, scientific game management. The overall purpose is management. The side effect is hunting. Mallards attracted to the area from the Mississippi flyway remain until about the middle of February. The spillways are then opened. Only about five per cent of the Bayou Meto Wildlife Area — the green tree area — is flooded for waterfowl. A primary purpose of the green tree area is duck hunting, which is a tool in conservation to keep the waterfowl population in balance. The Wildlife Management Area surrounds the Gill property on three sides. The combined area of the upper and lower green tree reservoirs was designed to flood between 7,000 and 9,000 acres. The area was primarily set up for a wintering habitat for waterfowl, not for hunting. Amendment 35 to the Arkansas Constitution charged the Commission with the duty of control, management, conservation and regulation of birds, game and wildlife resources of the state. §§ 1 and 8, Amendment 35. Traditionally, waterfowl have been a resource of this state. Providing a winter habitat for them is a proper function of the Commission in the control, management, conservation and regulation of the migratory waterfowl which are birds, game and a wildlife resource. The evidence shows that a winter habitat is as essential in the conservation and management of this wildlife resource as nesting grounds. The evidence also shows that hunting is necessary to maintain the proper population balance as a conservation measure. If summer or winter habitats are overpopulated, it stands to reason that this wildlife resource will suffer. There was no evidence in Hampton that conservation or propagation was promoted by intermittent shooting, or a thinning out process, as there is here. The primary purpose here is not acquisition of a public duck shooting facility. Hampton is easily distinguished. I would reverse the decree and remand for further proceedings.