People who fish and hunt in California have less protection of their privacy right under the U.S. Constitution, the state's Supreme Court ruled Monday.

A game warden may stop a person and demand to see what has been killed and taken even though the warden has no cause to suspect a law violation, a unanimous high court declared.

With respect to other potential lawbreakers, the Fourth Amendment requires probable cause for a stop.

All the warden needs, the court stated, is knowledge that the person is or has been fishing or hunting.

The stops "are limited to those persons who have voluntarily chosen to engage in the heavily regulated activity of fishing or hunting and, as a consequence, have a diminished reasonable expectation of privacy," wrote Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye in a 37-page opinion. Such a stop of a vehicle or a person on foot "constitutes a reasonable procedure under the Fourth Amendment," she wrote.

Protecting wildlife is "a special and important … interest and need that is distinct from the state's ordinary interest in crime control," Cantil-Sakauye said. The voluminous regulations would be impossible to enforce, she said, if only those the warden "reasonably suspected had violated the fish and game laws" could be stopped.

The high court's ruling overturns a 2-1 decision of the 4th District Court of Appeal in San Diego, which agreed with fisherman Bouhn Maikhio that there must be probable cause. The appeal court affirmed a trial court's suppression of evidence and dismissal of charges against Maikhio.

But the state, hoping to salvage the authority of its game wardens, pushed the case to the Supreme Court.

On a mid-August night in 2007, Warden Erik Fleet was watching people, including Maikhio, fishing off the Ocean Beach pier in San Diego. Fleet was using a telescope mounted on his truck, parked 200 yards from the pier.

When Maikhio left, Fleet stopped his vehicle about three blocks from the pier. Maikhio denied having any catch, but the warden found a California spiny lobster, which was out of season, in a black bag in the back seat area. Fleet later testified he had no reason to suspect a violation of the law when the made the stop.

Maikhio was charged with possessing the lobster and failing to exhibit his catch upon demand, both misdemeanors punishable by up to a $1,000 fine and/or up to six months in jail. Represented by public defenders, he moved to suppress the evidence on constitutional grounds.

The revived prosecution will now return to San Diego Superior Court for further proceedings.

And the lobster? His death sentence was vacated and he was returned to the sea by Fleet.

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