---
kind: "section"
citation: "16 U.S.C. § 63"
title: "16"
title_heading: "Conservation"
number: "63"
heading: "Transportation of birds, animals, or fish; violations of statute or rules or regulations for management, care, and preservation of parks; damage or spoliation; punishment"
release: "119-102"
date: "2026-07-12"
url: "https://uscodex.org/usc/16/63"
units:
  - "Chapter 1 — National Parks, Military Parks, Monuments, and Seashores"
  - "Subchapter VI — Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks"
---

# §63. Transportation of birds, animals, or fish; violations of statute or rules or regulations for management, care, and preservation of parks; damage or spoliation; punishment


Any [person](/usc/16/450rr–1.md?p=b) or [persons](/usc/16/450rr–1.md?p=b), or stage or express company, or railway company, who knows or has reason to believe that they were taken or killed contrary to the provisions of sections [57](/usc/16/57.md), [58](/usc/16/58.md), and [60](/usc/16/60.md) to [65](/usc/16/65.md) of this title, and who receives for transportation any of said animals, birds, or fish so killed, caught, or taken, or who shall violate any of the other provisions of said sections, or any rule or regulation that may be promulgated by the [Secretary](/usc/16/410r–5.md?p=c-1) of the Interior, with reference to the management and care of the said [parks](/usc/16/410r–5.md?p=c-3), or either of them, or for the protection of the property therein for the preservation from injury or spoliation of timber, mineral deposits, other than those legally located prior to the passage of the respective Acts creating and establishing said [parks](/usc/16/410r–5.md?p=c-3), natural curiosities, or wonderful objects within said [parks](/usc/16/410r–5.md?p=c-3), or either of them, or for the protection of the animals, birds, or fish in the said [parks](/usc/16/410r–5.md?p=c-3), or either of them, or who shall within said [parks](/usc/16/410r–5.md?p=c-3) commit any damage, injury, spoliation to or upon any building, fence, hedge, gate, guidepost, tree, wood, underwood, timber, garden, crops, vegetables, plants, land, springs, mineral deposits other than those legally located prior to the passage of the respective Acts creating and establishing said [parks](/usc/16/410r–5.md?p=c-3), natural curiosities, or other matter or thing growing or being thereon, or situated therein, shall be subject to the penalty provided for the [violation](/usc/16/620e.md?p=11) of rules and regulations of the [Secretary](/usc/16/410r–5.md?p=c-1) of the Interior authorized by section 3 of the Act of Congress approved August 25, 1916 (Thirty-ninth Statutes, page 535), entitled “An Act to establish a National [Park](/usc/16/410r–5.md?p=c-3) Service, and for other purposes”.[^1]


## Footnotes

[^1]: See References in Text note below.

## Source credit

(June 2, 1920, ch. 218, § 5, 41 Stat. 732.)

## Notes

### Editorial Notes

### References in Text

Section 3 of the Act of Congress approved August 25, 1916 (Thirty-ninth Statutes, page 535), entitled “An Act to establish a National Park Service, and for other purposes”, referred to in text, is section 3 of act Aug. 25, 1916, ch. 408, 39 Stat. 535, which enacted section 3 of this title. Section 3 of the Act was repealed and restated as section 1865(a) of Title 18, Crimes and Criminal Procedure, and sections 100751(a), 100752, 100753, and 102101 of Title 54, National Park Service and Related Programs, by Pub. L. 113–287, §§ 3, 4(a)(1), 7, Dec. 19, 2014, 128 Stat. 3094, 3260, 3272.