O.C.G.A.

O.C.G.A. § 27-1-31 (2019)

Unlawful possession or use of wildlife; unlawful concealment

✓ O.C.G.A. — 2019 edition (Public.Resource.Org Release 73)

Code text and O.C.G.A. statutory annotations on this page reflect the 2019 Official Code of Georgia Annotated (Public.Resource.Org Release 73, 2019-08-21; public domain per Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). The Syfert case-law annotations in Notes of Decisions, below, are current.

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(a) It shall be unlawful for any person to make use of or possess any wildlife or parts thereof which he knows or reasonably should have known have been taken or possessed contrary to any of the wildlife laws, rules, and regulations. (b) It shall also be unlawful for any person to conceal the taking or possessing of wildlife by himself or any other person, whether by accident or otherwise, if the person concealing the taking or possessing knows or reasonably should have known that the wildlife has been taken or possessed illegally.

History

(Ga. L. 1972, p. 925, § 1; Code 1933, § 45-203, enacted by Ga. L. 1977, p. 396, § 1.)

Annotations

JUDICIAL DECISIONS Conviction reversed. - Defendant’s conviction for unlawful possession of wildlife was reversed where, although defendant’s joint constructive possession of a wild turkey could be inferred from the circumstances, the state failed to show beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant

knew or reasonably should have known that the turkey was taken illegally by the nonresident codefendant, who had unlawfully obtained an honorary hunting license. Ford v. State, 178 Ga. App. 706, 344 S.E.2d 514 (1986).

RESEARCH REFERENCES Am. Jur. 2d. - 35A Am. Jur. 2d, Fish, Game, and Wildlife Conservation, § 59 et seq. ALR. - Construction and application of statute or ordinance making possession of carcass of game, fish, or bird, or parts

thereof, a criminal offense, 125 A.L.R. 1200. Validity, construction, and application of state wildlife possession laws, 50 A.L.R.5th 703.

Notes of Decisions

Cited in 3 cases (1 in the last 5 years), 1986–2025 · leading case: State v. Sutton, 369 S.E.2d 249 (Ga. 1988).

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State v. Sutton, 369 S.E.2d 249 (Ga. 1988). · cites it 4× “The appellee was charged with two counts of possession of illegal wildlife OCGA § 27-1-31 and one count of hunting deer out of season OCGA § 27-3-15.”

Ford v. State, 344 S.E.2d 514 (Ga. Ct. App. 1986). · cites it 6× “She was charged with the possession of illegally taken wildlife in violation of OCGA § 27-1-31. Defendant was tried with a co-defendant, her 71-year-old companion.”

Timothy Sullens v. State (Ga. Ct. App. 2025). · cites it 2× “13 And a state regulation in effect in 2019 required each deer harvest to be reported to the 11 OCGA § 27-1-31 (a). 12 OCGA § 27-3-29 (b) (1); see OCGA § 27-1-2 (7) (defining “Board”).”

Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.