§9-12-20. Ownership and control of seafoods.

All seafoods existing or living in the waters of Alabama not held in private ownership legally acquired and all beds and bottoms of rivers, streams, bayous, lagoons, lakes, bays, sounds and inlets bordering on or connecting with the Gulf of Mexico or Mississippi Sound within the territorial jurisdiction of the State of Alabama, including all oysters and other shellfish and parts thereof grown thereon, either naturally or cultivated, shall be, continue and remain the property of the State of Alabama to be held in trust for the people thereof until title thereto shall be legally divested in the manner and form authorized in this article, and the same shall be under the exclusive control of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources until the right of private ownership shall vest therein as provided in this article.

(Acts 1936-37, Ex. Sess., No. 169, p. 192; Code 1940, T. 8, §112.)