Game Commission makes case for Sunday hunting, fee increases

The Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) has been battling the state legislature on two fronts of late. One concerns the legalization of Sunday hunting for most game species; the second, a pressing need to increase hunting license fees. Representatives of the PGC pleaded their cases in recent testimony in Harrisburg. First, PGC Deputy Executive Director Bryan J. Burhans testified before the Senate Game and Fisheries Committee about the potential expansion of Sunday hunting.

Then, PGC Executive Director R. Matthew Hough testified before the House Policy Committee on the importance of a licensefee increase and Senate Bill 1166, which would enable the Game Commission to set its own fees for licenses without waiting for the legislature to act, which is now the case.

In making his case for expanding Sunday hunting, Burhans emphasized that hunting is already permitted in Pennsylvania on every Sunday throughout the year, even if on a very limited number of species such as crow season and hunting of unprotected species. “We have one of the most restrictive laws for Sunday hunting,” Burhans noted, “only four states currently prohibit Sunday hunting altogether – Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Delaware.”

The folks at the PGC find themselves with what you might call a dwindling fan base as the number of people purchasing hunting licenses is in significant decline. The PGC strongly advocates the expansion of Sunday hunting to help stem the tide. “The number one reason that people stop hunting is lack of time,” declared Burhans. “The overwhelming majority of hunting takes place on Saturdays; people work during the week, don’t get a lot of time off, and have other commitments. For a lot of hunters the only option is Saturday.”

“By expanding Sunday hunting, we would be able to increase recreational opportunities for hunters,” said Burhans. “Sunday hunting is an effective means of recruiting new hunters and retaining current hunters by increasing the value of the hunting license through offering additional opportunities to spend time in the field.” Given Burhans’ premise that most people can only hunt on Saturday, legalization of Sunday hunting, which would include hunting for small game and deer, would essentially double hunting opportunities for these folks.

Burhans’ point about “increasing the value of the hunting license” provided a perfect segue for Hough’s plea for passage of Senate Bill 1166. After all, if you offer a bigger bang for your hunting buck, you can expect a few more bucks in return.

Hough stated the PGC’s funding problem this way: “Although we are a state agency, we do not receive any general fund revenue. Our main funding streams come from a number of sources including Pittman-Robertson funding; the sale of oil, gas, and minerals (OGM) on state game lands; and of course, hunting and furtaking license sales. These revenue streams are not stable and fluctuate from year to year.

“Our license sales are as close to a stable funding source as we can get. We can estimate what our P-R Funding will be one year in advance, and to an extent, we can also predict what our OGM revenue will be from year to year. But as we have seen, it is volatile market, as evidenced by the recent dropoff in Marcellus shale activity and the price of natural gas.”

Hough explained that, historically, license sales revenue has been the primary source of funding for the Game Commission. At the time of the last license increase, license sales accounted for 54 percent of the PGC’s funding. Last year, revenue from all license sales was down to 35 percent.

“When we received our last increase in 1999, we estimated that the additional license revenue would give us five years before we would need another increase. We were very close with our predictions and about the time that the Fish & Boat Commission received their last license increase in 2006, we were again financially up against a wall,” said Hough.

But at that point the PGC budget crunch was assuaged by a vigorous timber market and significant timber revenues. Then, when the timber sales fell off, Marcellus shale came into play with more sustaining revenues for the PGC. But now with gas sales faltering, the PGC budget squeeze is on with a vengeance.

“Our costs have continued to skyrocket for a number of reasons,” said Hough, “general inflation, overall increase in healthcare benefits, and retirement contributions, just to name a few.”

According to Hough, rising personnel costs leave fewer dollars for operating expenditures such as prescribed fire, warm season grass plantings, creation of herbaceous openings, improved public access to State Game Lands, wildlife-disease research, wildlife protection, and youth conservation education.

“We have been able to make significant cost reductions in the past two years and there are far more to come next year,” cautioned Hough. “Unfortunately, we will not be able to continue that. If we are not able to obtain a license fee increase in the very near future, the impacts will be significant and far-reaching.”

It remains to be seen how effective the PGC’s testimony will be in convincing our super-sluggish state legislature to act. Clearly, the PGC needs to be granted some level of autonomy when it comes to increasing the price of licenses. The requested expansion of hunting on Sundays should also boost hunter participation along with license sales.

All of this comes against the backdrop of legislative reports urging a merge of the PGC with the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission as the most efficient way to achieve cost savings. The most recent report calculated that a merged agency might save almost five million dollars annually in personnel costs. This report, issued by the state’s Legislative Budget and Finance Committee, indicated that the elimination of a number of redundant, upper-level positions would account for these savings, but that any other benefits beyond that would be limited.

Both the PGC and PFBC oppose any merger and want to maintain their independent autonomy. Most of the Keystone State’s sportsmen and sportswomen apparently feel the same way and I count myself among them. The view from here is that our lawmakers should rise above their customary gridlock, heed the pleas of the PGC, pass Senate Bill 1166 granting the PGC the power to control license fees, and open the legislative door to clear the way for expansion of Sunday hunting in the Commonwealth.