This story is part of our series, Wild Pennsylvania. Check out all of our stories here.
Starting this weekend, hunters will have more opportunities to bag in-season game.
Sunday hunting is normally illegal in Pennsylvania. But, thanks to state legislation passed in 2019, Sunday hunting is allowed for three consecutive weekends in mid-November and early December. The Pennsylvania Game Commission is hopeful a state ban on Sunday hunting will be completely lifted next year.
Travis Lau, the communications director for the Pennsylvania Game Commission, said it’s just a matter of time until restrictions on Sunday hunting are lifted.
“The bill that was making its way through the legislature here and up until recent weeks, when the session ended this week, had traction. It was moving,” Lau said. “But it did run out of time before the end of the session.”
The bill passed in the House in June with a yes vote from every representative, and had been in the Senate since then. It will have to be re-introduced in the next session, which doesn’t begin until the new year.
Lau said expanding hunting opportunities helps bring in more hunters.
“If they don’t have enough time to get out in the woods, they’re less likely to buy a license,” Lau said. “And over the years, that is a factor, most likely, in the long term loss in hunters that we’re seeing, not only here in Pennsylvania but across the nation.”
Even though Thanksgiving is coming up, hunters cannot hunt turkey or migratory game birds on the next three Sundays.
“It’s a population management issue,” Lau said. “Providing more opportunity on a day of the week like Sunday would require shortening that season somewhere else. So it would be a trade off that hunters probably would not want to see.”
You can find more details about expanded Sunday hunting in the Hunting & Trapping Digest.
