Portugal: within the limits of the law, everyone may hunt
The framework act states that everyone may hunt within legal limits, and that game lawfully taken belongs to the hunter.
Portugal's framework act on hunting sets out the principles of sustainable management of game resources — their conservation and development — together with the principles governing hunting activity and hunting administration. Article 2 fixes the vocabulary. Game resources are the birds and land mammals found in a state of natural liberty, whether resident in the national territory or migrating through it, even if they come from artificial breeding or captivity, provided they appear on the species list published for the act's implementation. Hunting is defined as the form of rational use of those resources, and the act of hunting as any act aimed at taking, alive or dead, a specimen of a game species in natural liberty — notably searching, waiting and pursuing. Article 3 states the principles. Two are worth quoting: within the limits of the law, everyone has the faculty to hunt, subject to the conditions relating to the protection and conservation of game species; and specimens lawfully taken by the hunter are their property, unless otherwise regulated. Trading in game species outside the hunting periods is, by contrast, forbidden, except for animals produced in captivity and in other cases to be regulated.