Pennsylvania’s outdated prohibition on Sunday hunting is officially a relic of the past. On Wednesday starting at 11:30 EST, Gov. Josh Shapiro is signing legislation to repeal the age-old Sunday hunting ban and give hunters the freedom to get out seven days a week — if they so choose. The historic signing ceremony is taking place at the Blue Ridge Sportman’s Club in Harrisburg. In addition to the governor, it will include the state’s Secretary of Agriculture and the executive director of the Pennsylvania Game Commission, along with several state lawmakers who helped push the bill through.
“For 50 years people have fought to get this ban lifted,” House Rep. Mandy Steele, the bill’s lead sponsor, told Outdoor Life earlier this week. “[Hunting] is a way of life that is a vital part of our culture here in Pennsylvania … and, as a mother, I have really come to understand hunting as this incredible grounding force in a kid’s life. I see a part of their brain awaken when I get them out into the woods or the field.”
Steele, who took up hunting herself in her 40s, worked with other lawmakers, including Sen. Dan Laughlin, to make the legislation a reality. Sen. Laughlin had also sponsored an identical bill in the Senate, and lifting the ban on Sunday hunting has been a key part of his agenda since 2016.
“He’s really been championing this for the working class,” Sen. Laughlin’s communications director Chris Carroll tells OL. “Some working families don’t have the ability to get out any other day besides Sunday. So that’s what this bill was aimed at — giving people the freedom to be able to go out and hunt with their family on a day that they historically couldn’t.”
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In its announcement Wednesday morning, Gov. Shapiro’s office applauded the new law as a win for hunters, since finding free time is one of the biggest hurdles to getting outdoors, and being able to hunt on Sundays will benefit both working Pennsylvanians and the non-resident hunters who bring money into the state’s rural areas. It also noted the crucial role that hunters play in managing deer and other wildlife, and how the ability to hunt on Sundays will help them continue in that role. (Pennsylvania has around 850,000 licensed hunters, the second most in the nation behind Texas.)
“Families are busier than ever, social and work commitments can be demanding, and this extra time in the woods is a huge win for our hunters of all ages,” Shapiro’s office said in a prepared statement Wednesday. “The bill also keeps hunters on the frontlines of wildlife conservation by providing more time for them to fill tags, which helps meet the Game Commission’s harvest quotas.”
Shapiro’s office also made it clear that adding Sundays to the state’s hunting calendar will not endanger the non-hunters who recreate on public land, some of whom have fought in past years to keep the ban on Sunday hunting in place. It noted that since adding three Sundays to the calendar in 2019, the PGC has not seen an increase in the safety incidents between hunters and other user groups. Those Sundays have also been some of the highest-volume hunting days in recent years.
Under the new law, the PGC will have the ability to add Sundays to various hunting seasons. And the agency has signaled that it intends to move forward with this process as soon as this year, according to GoErie. It’s unclear when those dates will be announced and what those hunting opportunities might look like for the established 2025-26 hunting season. But hunters in the state are already looking forward to those changes.
“This marks the end of a 343-year old restriction and concludes a 50-year fight to modernize Pennsylvania’s hunting laws,” Kevin Askew, the executive director of Hunters United for Sunday Hunting, said in a press release leading up to Wednesday’s signing ceremony.
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Askew also spoke directly to some of the ongoing pushback that Sunday hunting proponents have gotten from Pennsylvania’s religious groups and other traditionalists, who view Sundays as a sacred day of rest. You can read more about those perspectives here.
“There has been nothing lost by offering hunting on both Saturdays and Sundays,” Askew said. “As with any other activity in life, if you don’t want to take part, you don’t have to, regardless of the day of the week.”
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