This Article examines the legal foundations for state and federal wildlife regulation in the United States. The first part explores the constitutional bases for federal authority over wildlife and the development of the doctrine of state ownership of wildlife, a judicially created doctrine which has furnished the basis for repeated challenges to the exercise of federal authority. The second part of the Article examines certain important limitations on the scope of state and federal regulatory authority. These include constitutional proscriptions against discrimination and the very special limitation deriving from Indian treaties.