The campaign of Gov. Rick Perry of Texas found itself on the defensive on Sunday over a report that he had hunted at and taken guests to a West Texas camp with a racially charged name that his father, and later Mr. Perry, had leased.

The Washington Post reported on Sunday that at least seven people it interviewed said the name for a portion of the property, Niggerhead, was visible on the rock at the entrance “at different points in the 1980s and 1990s,” and that a former worker said he believed he had seen it as recently as three years ago.

The hunting camp is near the small town where Mr. Perry grew up. The Perry campaign did not dispute that the racial slur was used as a name for the property. But it issued a statement saying that the name was changed soon after Mr. Perry’s father, Ray, joined a lease that gave him hunting rights there almost 30 years ago.

The revelation was one more challenge confronting the Perry campaign just as it was left reeling from his comments during a recent debate in support of granting the children of some illegal immigrants in-state tuition at Texas state universities, remarks that he later retreated from.