This is a question that has been dealt with for many years. About 600, to be exact. You see, deer and other wildlife are considered under the law to be a public trust - owned by the public, and managed by the government for the benefit of the resource and the public. This philosophy goes back to the Magna Carta , prior to which the King owned all wildlife and the peasantry was forbidden to take any of those animals or risk death for doing so. The Magna Cart, amongst other things, stripped away the legal standing that royalty owned all wildlife. This was such an important resolution to the problem that our own founding father's included it in the formation of the United States Constitution as well as most all state constitutions.
In short, you own the land, but the state and the people own the wildlife. This is why it is elligal to sell wildlife in the states - it's not yours to sell or to profit from. It's allso the rub that many people have for fur harvesting because it's the only way that we can make money directly off of wildlife.
Now, as a landowner you can believe in your heart that you "own" those deer, and if that's the way you want to look at it, then don't be surprised when our government implements laws here like most European countries 'enjoy'. There, landowners own the wildlife that is on their ground. At specified times of the year, each estate is required to submit an accurate count of all the various animals, by species, that reside on their land. Then, the state assesses a tax to the estate for those animals, i.e. $8 per deer. To defray the costs of those taxes, game animals are taken at the discretion of the estate owner and the meat/ products from the animal are sold in open markets with the hope that the revenue generated will offset the costs of the taxes. Unfortunately, these estates invite only the upper echelons to hunt on their ground and there is no such thing as just going up, asking, and going hunting. Most of us on this board would never get to hunt under these circumstances because we simply don't have the clout or the cash.
Not to be too hard on you, but IMHO, you knew that deer ate your hay and aflalfa when you started farming, so why do you act so bent out of shape now simply because someone or a law stands between you and the chance to make money off a natural resource that is as much mine as it is yours? This is a real trigger point here since Kansas is now seeing a huge decline in access for tax payer sportsmen because our federal tax dollars are being used to underwrite habitat development for whitetail deer (CRP) on acres that are being leased and locked by the highest bidder. Hunting as we've known it up to now is dying a slow death and the federal government is forcing us to fund its demise through CRP dollars. I know a lot of people that believe that CRP ground should be open to public hunting since the habitat on that acreage was paid for with our tax dollars. Something to think about. Just my .02.
