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With the ban lifted, Pennsylvania hunters get 13 Sundays in 2025 • Pennsylvania Capital-Star [1]
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Date: 2025-07-29 00:24:35+00:00
Pennsylvania hunters will have 13 straight Sundays to go out in the woods and fields this fall.
The Pennsylvania Game Commission met on Monday to announce the dates for Sunday hunting in 2025. The move came a few weeks after Gov. Josh Shapiro signed legislation to repeal the state’s ban.
From September 14 through December 7, all Sundays will be open to hunting.
“I would just like to say to all of my fellow hunters out there, let’s make this a golden opportunity and do Sunday the way it needs to be done,” Game Commissioner Robert C. Schwalm said during Monday’s meeting. “We need to recruit. We need to reactivate and we need to retain.”
“We can turn this around,” he added. “We finally got this in our arsenal. Let’s make it happen.”
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Supporters of repealing Pennsylvania’s Sunday hunting prohibition argued that it was an outdated ban that limited opportunities to make it accessible for younger people and those who work on weekdays.
State Rep. Mandy Steele (D-Allegheny) and state Sen. Dan Laughlin (R-Erie) led the bipartisan effort to get House Bill 1431, which gave the commission authority to decide which Sundays should be open to hunting, over the finish line. They celebrated the additional Sundays open to hunting in social media posts.
“The Pennsylvania Game Commission has approved 10 additional Sunday hunting days this season! This is just the beginning!!” Steele wrote.
“Sunday hunting dates are set. Mark your calendars. Good luck to all hunters!,” Laughlin said.
Migratory game bird seasons are the lone exception, according to the Game Commission, because those seasons are set through federal frameworks and “adding any Sundays at this time would result in a loss of hunting days in 2025-26.”
Prior to House Bill 1431 being signed, three Sundays each year — one during archery season, one during rifle season, and one Sunday selected by the Game Commission — were open for hunting in Pennsylvania, thanks to a law signed by Gov. Tom Wolf in 2019. However, hunting crows, foxes and coyotes had been legal on Sundays prior to 2019.
Game Commissioner Kristen Koppenhafer described the decision to expand hunting to 13 Sundays as a “big” and “calculated, very strategic step,” and an effort in “making sure that we do this the right way.”
“I think what’s important to me, as a commissioner and also as a hunter, is that those are 13 consecutive Sundays,” Koppenhafer said. “So, hopefully it minimizes confusion for when hunting is allowed on Sundays.”
Farming organizations backed the effort to repeal the ban, believing that it can help reduce crop damage by better managing deer population.
Groups and others who were opposed the effort included some hiking and environmental organizations who are concerned that the additional days for hunting will keep non-hunters out of the woods in Pennsylvania.
The Game Commission noted that firearms deer season will still end on Saturday, Dec. 13.
“Many established hunting seasons will continue to close as scheduled on a Saturday,” the Game Commission wrote in a press release. “Sundays must fall between the established opening and closing days of a season to be open to hunting.”
In January, the Game Commission Board will begin the process of setting the 2026-27 hunting seasons.
“Let’s do it in a way that’s meaningful and at the same time, let’s look ahead to next year and say, ‘is this the framework that we want to continue with? Is there opportunity to expand it, or do we need to throttle it back?,” Koppenhafer said.
“For the side of the aisle that says, ‘Let’s go 52 weeks a year, full throttle,’ just respectfully asking you to pump your brakes a little bit,” Koppenhafer added. “And for those that say, ‘Man, I don’t like Sunday hunting, and I don’t think there’s any room for it,’ for them to understand it, that we hear them too, and we’re taking a soft, calculated approach and making sure that we do this the right way.”
Pennsylvania has joined 39 other states with no limitations on hunting on Sundays and allows hunters to take deer, bear, turkey or other game, as long as it’s on an in-season Sunday.
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