[Effective 7/1/2024]

(a) There is hereby created a wildlife resources agency, which shall have full and exclusive jurisdiction of the duties and functions relating to wildlife formerly held by the game and fish commission or of any other law relating to the management, protection, propagation, and conservation of wildlife, including hunting and fishing, except those powers and duties conferred upon the fish and wildlife commission as provided in § 70-1-206.
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Terms Used In Tennessee Code 70-1-301 v2

  • Agency: means the wildlife resources agency. See Tennessee Code 70-1-101
  • Angling: means any effort made to take, kill, injure, capture, or catch any fish and every act of assistance in any effort. See Tennessee Code 70-1-101
  • Commission: means the Tennessee fish and wildlife commission, and "commissioner" means a member of the fish and wildlife commission. See Tennessee Code 70-1-101
  • Fish: means all species of trout, salmon, walleye, northern pike, bass, crappie, bluegill, catfish, perch, sunfish, drum, carp, sucker, shad, minnow, and such other species of fish that are presently found in the state or may be introduced or transplanted into this state for consumptive or nonconsumptive use. See Tennessee Code 70-1-101
  • Fishing: means any effort made to take, kill, injure, capture, or catch any fish and every act of assistance in any effort. See Tennessee Code 70-1-101
  • Hunting: means chasing, driving, flushing, attracting, pursuing, worrying, following after or on the trail of, searching for, trapping, shooting at, stalking, or lying in wait for, any wildlife, whether or not such wildlife is then or subsequently captured, killed, taken, or wounded and every act of assistance to any other person, but "hunting" does not include stalking, attracting, searching for, or lying in wait for, wildlife by an unarmed person solely for the purpose of watching wildlife or taking pictures of wildlife. See Tennessee Code 70-1-101
  • Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
  • State: when applied to the different parts of the United States, includes the District of Columbia and the several territories of the United States. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
  • Trapping: means taking, killing, and capturing wildlife by the use of any trap, snare, deadfall, or other device commonly used to capture wildlife, and the shooting or killing of wildlife lawfully trapped, and includes all lesser acts such as placing, setting, or staking such traps, snares, deadfalls, and other devices, whether or not such acts result in taking of wildlife, and every attempt to take and every act of assistance to any other person in taking or attempting to take wildlife with traps, snares, deadfalls, or other devices. See Tennessee Code 70-1-101
  • Wildlife: means wild vertebrates, mollusks, crustaceans, and fish. See Tennessee Code 70-1-101
(b) It is the policy of the state that the agency shall be nonpartisan and shall place first and foremost the welfare of the wildlife and its environment in the agency’s planning and decisions, and to encourage, by every appropriate means, the full development of the state’s natural resources to the benefit of all of the citizens of Tennessee, including, but not limited to, the creation of a comprehensive long-range management plan to integrate the wildlife resource agency’s efforts and to implement and encourage full utilization of Tennessee’s wildlife resources consistent with realistic conservation principles.
(c) It is the policy of the state that the agency shall support and promote hunting, angling, and trapping, including the management of predators through hunting and trapping, as preferred methods of wildlife management and conservation.
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