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0110 States will not, in every instance, have reserved rights to all unappropriated water on federal reserved 'lands. See United States v. New Mexico, SUDra, 438 U.S. at 702. -xI the United States owned all the unappropriated water on the public domain at the time a particular parcel was reserved and had plenary control over its disposition, this limitation would appear to be superfluous, and the Court's extended analysis of the scope of the reserved right doctrine unnecessary. ,Furthermore, it seems anomalous to suggest that an entity can own water that has not yet been appropriated, if ownership is understood to mean a proprietary interest in the water. Unappropriated water, much as wild animals, has been viewed as res nullius -- the property of no one -- until it has been-captured. See F. Trelease, "Government Ownership and Trusteeship of Water," 45 Calif. L. Rev. 638, 643 (1957); Trelease, "Federal-State Relations," supra n.6, at 147b-i; Note, "Federal Nonreserved Water Rights," 48 Univ. of Chi. L. Rev. 785, 770-71 (1981). In Hughes v. Oklahoma, 441 U.S. 322 (1979), the Supreme Court noted t~at concepts of ownership of or title to natural resources such as natural gas, minerals, landfill areas, birds, fish and other wildlife is a "legal fiction" that merely expresses legitimate state regulatory interests in the conservation and protection of its natural resources: The whole ownership theory, in fact, is now generally regarded as but a fiction expressive in legal shorthand of the importance to its people that a State have power to preserve and regulate the exploitation of an important resource. 441 U.S. at 334, quoting Toomer v. Witsell, 334 U.s. 385, 402 (1948). The Court made it clear that a state's power over wild animals, as over other natural resources, is based on the state's police powers and is subject to ordinary consti- tutional limitations -- in that case, the Commerce Clause. ~/ 83/ In Hughes v. Oklahoma, the Court overruled Geer v. COnnecticut, 161 U.S. 519 (1896), which had sustained against a Commerce Clause challenge a Connecticut statute forbidding the transportation beyond the State of game birds that had been lawfully killed within the State. The Court's decision in Geer rested on its conclusion that no interstate commerce was involved, because the State had the power as representative for its citizens, who owned all wild animals within the State, (Continued) -54-