LINCOLN, Neb. -- Hunters in more than a dozen states can rest easy -- their right to track deer or shoot pheasant now has been protected in their state constitutions.
Those rights will extend to hunters in Kentucky and Wyoming if voters there agree next year, and more states soon might follow.
The idea of enshrining hunting and fishing rights in state constitutions is sweeping the country even though supporters and hunters themselves acknowledge no one is trying to pry rifles from their hands.
"I haven't seen anyone on a local level holding up signs in front of the public area saying we're a bunch of evil-doers," said Jason Brion, a Lincoln, Neb., hunter who nonetheless supports more protection for the sport.
But those behind the push insist the threat is real and that sportsmen need protection as the population becomes more urban and fewer hunters and anglers take to the forests, fields and streams.
"It's obvious there's less of a threat in Nebraska than, say, Massachusetts or Connecticut," said Wes Sheets, chairman of the Nebraska Sportsmen's Foundation, which backed the Nebraska effort. "But there is a threat. There is a concern. You don't win wars in one fell swoop. You win them incrementally, changing the rules over time. One day you wake up, and everything's different."
The reaction to the right to hunt campaign is mostly befuddlement.
"If we have a constitutional right to hunt and fish, why not a right to shop and golf?" asked Ashley Byrne, a spokeswoman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. She called it a "solution in search of a problem."
Thirteen states now have guaranteed the right to hunt and fish in their constitutions. Three states added the language last year -- Arkansas, South Carolina and Tennessee. Only three states, including Minnesota and Vermont, had such amendments before 2000.
Pro-hunting measures were introduced in at least 14 state legislatures last year. Some state legislatures, preoccupied with budget problems, didn't complete action on the issue.
Amendments that have reached the ballot overwhelmingly have won, including 89 percent support in South Carolina and 87 percent in Tennessee.
Supporters said the amendments would deter new limits on hunting seasons, restrictions on hunting weapons or further protections for prey other than those mandated under endangered species laws. Adding the language to state constitutions makes it harder to change, since doing so typically would require legislative action and a public vote.
Some skeptics suspect the issue is more about stoking conservative politics than about hunting. Sandy Bahr, director of the Sierra Club's Grand Canyon Chapter in Arizona, said such initiatives are designed to create fear among hunters and drive voters to the polls.
"What's broken here?" Bahr said. "This is an organizing tool. The biggest threat to hunting is that people will stop doing it -- not that it will be banned."
Douglas Shinkel, a policy specialist who tracks the issue for the National Conference of State Legislatures, said that flagging interest in hunting is a cause of concern.
A 2007 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service study found that the number of hunters 16 and older fell by 10 percent between 1996 and 2006 -- from 14 million to about 12.5 million.
