What with all the scary headlines about accidental shootings, hunters falling out of tree stands and heart attacks each deer season in Pennsylvania, you might be inclined to wonder: Just how dangerous is this sport, anyway.

If you click on a running tally of hunting accident news reports from around the country rather proudly displayed by the Committee to Abolish Sport Hunting, you might be dismayed.

Wisconsin: Hunter in critical condition after falling from a tree stand.

New York: Injured hunter crawls to safety.

Minnesota: Young hunter hospitalized after shooting accident.

And when about 750,000 hunters took to the woods for Pennsylvania's traditional firearms season a couple weeks ago, there were accidents, just as there are every season.

In Allegheny County, a 14-year-old boy was shot in the leg when a shotgun being hoisted into a tree stand discharged.

On opening day, a hunter from Carbon County was walking in Schuylkill County, tripped and his gun discharged, striking his arm.

In Elk County, a police officer, his father and a third relative, all from the Pittsburgh area, were killed when their pickup ran off a narrow road and overturned, on their way to deer camp.

As of last week, there were nine incidents around the state. Six were self-inflicted and three were two-party shootings involving accidental discharge.

These events make the news, and rightly so. To be sure, hunting is a sport not to be taken lightly.

Thirty-two hunters have suffered fatal shots since 2000.

That sobering statistic notwithstanding, the headlines may also obscure the reality that hunting is one of the safest of all recreational pastimes.

You're more likely to get injured cheerleading, golfing or riding a bike than hunting. You're about four times as likely to encounter a boo-boo carrying a fishing rod than a hunting firearm.

Only camping and billiards is safer in the number of injuries per 100,000 participants. Hunting comes in at one injury for every 2,000 participants, compared to one per 9,045 for camping and one for every 5,314 for billiards and pool.

That's according to a study by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for the firearms industry.

What about here in Pennsylvania, which has more hunters than any other state?

A partial measure is from statistics kept by the Pennsylvania Game Commission, which by law keeps track of all hunting-related accidents that involve someone being shot.

Such incidents have dropped steadily over the last 30 years, from 181 during the various hunting seasons in 1982-83 to 121 in 1990 to 74 in 2000 to 35 during calendar year 2010.

Though the number of hunters has declined somewhat during that time, two developments have made hunting safer in recent years, according to Philip Luckenbaugh, hunter education specialist with the Game Commission's hunter-trapper education division.

First were regulations to make hunter education mandatory for new hunters. Beginning in 1969, hunter education was required of all new hunters under age 16. In 1982, all first-time hunters had to undergo the safety course, regardless of age. In 1986, the courses were lengthened to 10 hours and included trapping.

In 2004, a new curriculum moved toward skill-based training with some hands-on hunting situations. Most recently, the agency has trotted out a series of voluntary specialized courses on bowhunting, turkey hunting, trapping and, soon, muzzleloading, on the agency's website, www.pgc.state.pa.us.

Another important development was making hunters wear blaze orange so they were less likely to mistake each other for game.

In 1987, deer and bear hunters had to wear a fluorescent orange hat or vest. In 1988, that became a hat AND vest. In 1992, hunters of small game and fall turkey hunters also had to wear orange.

Though the trend on hunter safety continues to be encouraging, there remain a couple troublespots.

Falls from tree stands continue to increase, especially by older hunters.

The Game Commission doesn't track tree stand falls — nor heart attacks when hunters are afield, for that matter.

But a study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine in 2009 looked at tree stand falls during deer seasons in Pennsylvania from 1987 to 2006.

The conclusion: "Falls from tree stands associated with deer hunting are an increasing and important cause of injuries, especially for older hunters."

During that 20-year period, 499 hunters were injured from a fall, killing seven of them. Most troubling: the rate of accidents increased seven-fold during that time.

Falls were caused by structure failure, slips while entering or exiting the stand, alcohol use and falling asleep.

Aware of the accidents, the Game Commission in 1999 incorporated tree stand safety into their hunter-trapper education. However, injury rates continued to increase.

One salient statistic: only eight of the injured hunters were wearing safety restraints. I wouldn't go into a tree stand these days without a harness system.

In addition to tree stand safety now being part of mandatory hunter education, the Game Commission offers a voluntary tree stand safety course online at their website, www.huntercourse.com/treest....

Hunters shooting each other during fall and spring turkey seasons also remains a thorny, but thoroughly preventable, fact of life.

Fourteen of the 35 accidental shootings in 2010 involved turkey hunting.

Despite the high number of mistaken shootings during turkey seasons, the Game Commission, at the request of many hunters, in 2008 removed the orange requirements that had mandated that turkey hunters wear at least 100 square inches on the head while moving through the woods during the spring gobbler season.

The agency said there was no clear evidence that the orange requirement had made any appreciable difference in shooting incidents.

If hunters could be more cautious when going after Tom Turkey, Pennsylvanians really would have something to strut about in boasting of the relative safety of their beloved sport.

acrable@lnpnews.com

For a listing of outdoors events throughout Lancaster County this week and beyond, go to lancasteronline.com. Click on Sports, then Outdoors.