In State vs. Trustees of Freeholders and Commonalty of Town of Southampton 99 AD2d 804, 472 N.Y.S.2d 394 2d Dept 1984, issues were presented as to whether or not the legislation imposed by the State through the Department of Environmental Conservation pre-empted local legislation affecting fishing in the Town of Southampton. While that case involved freshwater fishing within the Town of Southampton, the Appellate Division stated as follows: "The defendants herein are the successors to the original trustees of the freeholders and commonalty of the Town of Southampton whose proprietary rights to certain lands and waters of the Town of Southampton and their right to legislate and control the same as a body politic is derived from antique, royal land grands and patents which have been repeatedly confirmed and upheld throughout the history of this State for over 300 years by both the framers of the State Constitution and the Legislature despite various specific attacks upon such authority (see People v. Miller, 235 App Div 226, 257 N.Y.S. 300, supra, and cases therein cited and discussed). Though we recognize the fact that provisions contained in ancient land grants have been held under certain circumstances to be less than sacrosanct (see Demarest v. Mayor of City of NY, 74 NY 161; People ex rel. Squires v. Hand, 158 App Div 510, 143 N.Y.S. 1138), the grant of authority to the defendants, confirmed by the decisions of the courts of this State, recognize a private right of ownership to property administered by defendants as a body politic. Such property rights in the people of the Town of Southampton would remain and exist even if the town's existence as a municipal government were terminated entirely." The Court further opined: "Though the State asserts its desire as parens patriae to protect fish and fry and to conserve our natural resources, which is a seemingly valid exercise of its police powers, the record before us does not establish, as a matter of law, that this consideration is valid one. "Fish running at large . . . ferae naturae, and while in their natural element unconfined, are the public property of all the people of the State in common, and no person can acquire property by taking and reducing them to actual possession: (Matter of Fishway in Town of Deposit, 131 App Div 403, 410, 115 N.Y.S. 745; cf. Smith v. Odell, 234 NY 267, 270-272, 137 N.E. 325)."