Every hunter in Arkansas has always understood that when a Game and Fish Commission wildlife officer asks to see your hunting license or inspect your gear, you comply.
Apparently, it's not that simple.
According to a decision last week from the Arkansas Court of Appeals, the Game and Fish Commission's rules of engagement with sportsmen afield are unconstitutional. The AGFC disagrees and will ask the Arkansas Supreme Court to review the decision.
The issue, according to legal eagles we consulted about the matter, is the constitutional requirement for a wildlife officer to articulate reasonable suspicion of unlawful activity in order to search a person afield.
The Game and Fish Commission has always promoted the assumption that if you are hunting or fishing, you are engaging in a regulated activity that requires a license, and that a wildlife officer has the authority to detain you and to ascertain that you are properly licensed and that your equipment complies with applicable regulations.
Bob Trammel, a Little Rock attorney, said that he has always assumed a hunter or angler automatically consents to limited intrusion in the interest of protecting wildlife when he buys a license. In that respect, he said the three justices in the minority made the more compelling argument.
According to the majority opinion, routine compliance checks give wildlife officers unrestricted ability to conduct warrantless searches. Driving a vehicle on Arkansas roadways is a regulated activity that encompasses a suite of requirements, too, but police may not detain and search one's vehicle without reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. The Court of Appeals said the same standards apply to Game and Fish enforcement personnel.
"I think the majority has tried to apply principles that come from different areas of society, and the dissent has drilled down to a specific context, which is the protection of our wildlife, making sure that you only take what's permitted, that you do it in the season you're permitted to do it in," Trammel said. "Under this decision, you can expect the Supreme Court to be receptive to the opinion of the attorney general."
In his dissenting opinion in the case, Chief Judge Robert Gladwin made some curious comments that appeared in the article that Spencer Willems wrote in the Dec. 18 edition of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. A comment attributed to Gladwin said that hunting activities are privileges.
In Arkansas, hunting and fishing are constitutional rights by virtue of Amendment 88. Courts have not yet defined what the right to hunt entails, nor defined its limits, but it does rise above a privilege.
Gladwin also was cited as having written, "The highly dangerous and regulated nature of hunting and fishing demands compliance checks ..."
Statistically, fishing actually is more dangerous than hunting, but both sports are among the safest of all recreational activities.
In 2007, for example, according to the National Safety Council, there were 903 hunting-related injuries requiring emergency treatment nationwide among 20.9 million hunters. That equals 0.4 injuries per 100,000 participants. In the same year there were 63,026 fishing-related injuries among more than 43.3 million fishermen. That's 14.6 injuries per 100,000 participants.
Compare that to bicycle riding, which accounted for 485,669 injuries among 43.1 million cyclists. That's almost 113 injuries per 100,000 participants.
Golf in 2007 was only slightly less injurious than fishing with 34,382 injuries among 24.7 million golfers, or 13.9 injuries per 100,000 participants. In case you didn't notice, there are almost twice as many anglers in the United States as there are golfers.
Football, with 235 injuries requiring emergency treatment among 100,000 participants, is the most dangerous sport, followed by basketball with 171.3 such injuries per 100,000 participants.
One reason hunting is so safe is because in Arkansas, all hunters born after 1968 are required to pass a certified hunter education course. That is part of the "highly regulated nature" of hunting to which Gladwin referred, but the cumulative generational effect of hunter education greatly reduces its risks.
The number of accidents involving firearms among hunters is about .00001 percent, according to data compiled from July 1, 2003 to June 30, 2004.
Most hunting accidents involve hunters falling from treestands, but that element of hunting is unregulated.
Sports on 12/21/2014