HOW DOES SUNDAY HUNTING MAKE THINGS BETTER

Executive Director Harold Daub receives a lot of questions regarding Sunday hunting and why a change in the law is needed. 

Here is a recent response to a concerned hunter and conservation group. 

Don and others, I can’t tell you it will get better for you or I personally, it sounds like we get enough opportunity to hunt. But the fact is that surveys of Pennsylvanians who are interested in hunting but aren’t hunting show the number one reason is: TIME.  

For those who work 6 days a week, those who have kids in sports, those with kids in split parent homes....Sunday will make a huge improvement in their hunting.

For all Pennsylvanians, having the strongest possible hunting community has a lot of benefits. Pennsylvania wildlife management responsibility falls on the PA Game Commission. There are 480 species the PGC is charged with management responsibility for, as stipulated in our Commonwealth constitution and Title 34 Game Law. This management system is referred to as the North American Model of Wildlife Management. The basis of that model is: hunters pay to hunt, that license revenue provides the funding needed to promote and protect healthy wildlife populations and habitats.

Another funding source comes from the Wildlife Restoration Act, have you ever heard of Pittman-Robertson (P-R) Funding? This is money collected from an excise tax on firearms and ammunition. A tax that was ASKED for by conservationists about 80 years ago. That funding is reimbursed back to states using a calculation that considers two things: a state’s land mass and the number of licenses sold.

With PA now surrounded by states offering 7 day hunting opportunity, and only 2 other states (Maine and Massachusetts) being more restrictive than PA, the risk is real that PA will see the continued decline in the number of active hunters.

Less hunters = less funding. Funding needed to control things like CWD, EHD, study declines in populations like grouse and bats, reintroduction efforts like the Bald Eagle, and ensuring healthy habitats on our 1.5 million acres of state game lands.  

You see guys, it’s much more than your personal experience. If you’re able to hunt enough today, you are lucky. Many can not.

Hunters United for Sunday Hunting

Executive Director, Harold Daub