Hunting Archery Duck Deer

Advocates see many options for 7-day hunting Opponents want to see 132-year-old ban kept

HARRISBURG — A few decades ago, the Blue Laws kept Pennsylvanians from doing a lot of things on Sundays, which many Christians consider a day only for rest and worship.

Shopping was difficult because a lot of stores and businesses weren’t allowed to open. Major-league baseball couldn’t be played on Sundays in Pennsylvania until the 1930s.

But today, most of the restrictive laws have been lifted. Pennsylvanians even can buy liquor on Sundays at some state stores.

“About the only thing you can’t do on Sundays now is buy a car”‘ state Rep. Robert Godshall, R-Montgomery, said last week.

Or hunt game animals.

Godshall, a hunter, is unhappy about that. So is Rep. Marc Gergely, D-White Oak, who’s also a hunter.

So they’re trying to do what the Legislature has been unable to do on several tries, pass a bill giving the State Game Commission the authority to allow hunting on Sundays.

But farmers and other rural landowners, along with social conservatives, are putting up opposition.

The commission would have several options to consider — allowing Sunday hunting during all hunting seasons, totaling about six months of the year, or for only the two Sundays during the November-December deer season; letting hunters shoot just deer on Sundays, or opening it up to waterfowl and other animals; and limiting hunting to some or all public gamelands or urging private landowners to open up their properties, too.

A bill to authorize the game commission to allow Sunday hunting in some form has been introduced in House Bill 904 by Rep. Edward Staback, D-Lackawanna. The House Game and Fisheries Committee has held two days of hearings on the subject in the past 10 days.

Gergely said the state would benefit economically, both in added sales tax and income tax revenue, as hunters spend more on lodging, gasoline, food, rifles, ammunition, hunting gear and other items. Hunters from out of state would be attracted.

According to a survey released last week by a legislative study committee, hunters said they would hunt nearly five additional days a year if Sunday hunting were allowed during all seasons. The additional economic impact could be as much as $629 million a year, creating 5,000 jobs, the report said.

Godshall said he was concerned with the drop in hunting licenses, from 1.2 million in 1990 to about 950,000 now. He said younger hunters, many of whom have to work weekdays and Saturdays, would have more chances to get out into the woods if Sunday hunting were permitted.

He said youngsters have so many different forms of entertainment nowadays, many aren’t taking to the woods, and the average age of hunters is increasing, which he’d like to reverse.

Technically, there is a very limited form of Sunday hunting in Pennsylvania, but only to get rid of pesky animals such as crows, coyotes and foxes, that eat crops.

But advocates of what’s being called “expanded” Sunday hunting find themselves in the crosshairs of powerful opponents, religious conservatives who still consider Sunday a day of sanctity and rest, and farmers and other rural landowners who think they should get one day of peace and privacy without having hunters crossing their land, firing weapons.

Pennsylvania Farm Bureau officials told the Game and Fisheries Committee last week that there was “great concern in the farming community” about allowing hunting on Sundays.

“We want to continue to have one day a week,” said Wilmer Lehman, of the Franklin County Farm Bureau, “when we are able to use our properties without gunfire, trespassing hunters and other interruptions to our family life. Please remember, our farm is not just a piece of property, it’s also our home.”

Farmers want one day a week “when they can enjoy some privacy, whether it is for religious reasons, quality family time or recreational use of their property,” Farm Bureau official Joel Rotz said.

A lot of farmers welcome hunters onto their property at certain times, the bureau said, because they control some undesired animals that eat or damage crops.

The Farm Bureau said it could support expansion of the two-week deer hunting season by one week, “as long as it excludes hunting on Sunday,” the bureau’s Mark O’Neill said.

According to the recent study done for the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee, 38 states allow unlimited Sunday hunting, while a few others allow it for limited durations. Pennsylvania is one of nine states that bans game hunting altogether on Sundays.

Gergely said neighboring states of New York, Ohio, West Virginia and Maryland allow it, which draws Pennsylvania hunters over state lines, depriving the state of revenue.

The legislative study was based on results of surveying 1,000 farmers and other landowners, 1,000 licensed hunters and 113 commercial hunting grounds.

By an 80 percent margin, landowners opposed Sunday hunting. Many landowners said they would close their properties to all hunting if hunting on Sunday were allowed.

Hunters who were surveyed favored Sunday hunting by a 53 percent margin. Of the hunting ground operators, 75 percent favored Sunday hunting.

One hunter who didn’t favor Sunday hunting responded to the survey, saying the ban on Sunday hunting was a longtime tradition that should remain.

Pennsylvania’s legal prohibition on Sunday hunting has been in effect since 1873, the study said.

Another hunter said that if Sunday hunting were allowed, “Landowners might post their land, prohibiting all types of hunting.”

Of the hunters who like Sunday hunting, deer was, by 85 percent, the most popular choice of game. Of the same group, 77 percent favored all-season Sunday hunting, not just the two Sundays in deer season.

Having Sunday hunting would help state coffers also, the study said. Sales tax revenues were estimated to increase by $14 million, from $52 million to $66 million, if Sunday hunting were allowed during all hunting seasons, while state income taxes would rise by $4 million, from $14 million to $18 million.

Gergely said he wasn’t sure when, or if, the Sunday hunting bill would come up for a vote.
By Tom Barnes, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau