On May 23, the United States Supreme Court upheld a state scheme for hunting licenses that required nonresidents to pay 25 times the fee of residents for the right to shoot elk in Montana. In Baldwin v. Fish and Game Commission,¹ Justice Blackmun, writing for the six-man majority, found that hunting was a recreational activity and thus not protected by the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the United States Constitution. Furthermore, the Court ruled, since the fee scheme was rationally related to the legitimate state objective of conserving wildlife, the state legislature had not violated the Equal Protection Clause by establishing such a marked difference in the resident and nonresident fees even though the differential could not be exactly justified by the added cost burden of regulating nonresident hunters.

The decision strengthens the role of the states in protecting wildlife found within their borders, but it raises disturbing suggestions that recreational access by nonresidents to a state's natural resourcess, be it wildlife or lakes or state parks, can be severely limited. The Court in effect held that the enjoyment of a state's natural resources was not an activity that must be offered to nonresidents on an equal basis with residents because such activity is not a right inseparable from national citizenship. The Court's failure to put discernible limits on the extent of discrimination that a state may practice against nonresidents raises the danger that a state may now charge nonresidents such a high fee to enjoy its natural resources as to virtually exclude them.