Pennsylvania’s hunting regulators are looking to expand an initiative that connects landowners in need of help with deer management and hunters who are looking for new ground to cover.
The Pennsylvania Game Commission in 2025 piloted the Certified Hunter Program in the southwest portion of the state. Game commissioners last month preliminarily approved expanding it statewide, with final approval expected in April.
Under the program, the commission certifies that a participating hunter meets set criteria, including passing a background check, written exam and proficiency test with firearms and archery gear. They can then reserve time on acreage that the landowner has already enrolled in the program.
“We completed over 1,000 hunts through this program and really had overwhelmingly positive reviews,” the commission’s Tyler Strohecker said in January.
Built from the ground up by various Game Commission staffers, the Certified Hunter Program relies on 21st-century technology to solve the age-old issue of crop-damage concerns.
Under Pennsylvania’s traditional Agricultural Deer Control efforts, a hunter needs to contact enrolled landowners to receive Ag Tag harvest permits. The certified program allows an approved hunter to use an e-tagging and e-harvest system to reserve time on a property for a day, up to two weeks in advance.
“Our landowners appreciated that, knowing that they were vetted ahead of time and didn’t have to take the time to have their front door knocked on by 50 strangers and not know how to vet through that,” Strohecker, landowner engagement and hunting access manager, told the Board of Game Commissioners at its meeting Jan. 23.
The hunter and landowner then receive confirmation emails, and the hunt is on.
“Thank you for giving us an easy decision to make,” Game Commissioner Kristen Koppenhafer told Strohecker ahead of last month’s preliminary vote on expansion.
Wait list 800-strong
Strohecker said he was hoping for 20 properties and 100 hunters in 2025 and instead saw 60 properties enrolled and 250 hunters certified. The wait list to be certified stood around 800 as of January.
“That’s without a strong marketing campaign,” he said. “We didn’t put this on our Facebook. That is largely word of mouth advertising.”
The pilot averaged over seven deer harvested per property.
“We spoke to hunters that said very clearly that these were some of the best hunting grounds they’ve ever had the opportunity to hunt in our state,” Strohecker said. “And they didn’t have that prior.”
“They had some very deer-rich environments, I’ll say, throughout this program,” he added.
Landowners can customize their participation by limiting which sporting arms may be used, deciding whether to permit Sunday hunting, and blacking out certain dates when they or their family may want to hunt the property. They receive annual reports and harvest history provided for their farm and can call the Game Commission at any time for real-time data.
“Really, at its core, it was designed to connect landowners with the right hunting population of hunters that could really help out landowners who were having issues with crop damage and deer damage on their properties,” Strohecker explained.
Participating hunters are given tools like an OnX subscription.
“We wanted them to know where property boundaries were,” Strohecker said. “We wanted them to be able to drop pins: Here’s the parking location, here’s a Safety Zone.”
The Certified Hunter Program dovetails with another initiative the Board of Game Commissioners will consider in April. That one would allow Ag Tag hunters to use any sporting arms authorized for hunting deer in the regular firearms deer season throughout the Ag Tag permit period. Currently, Ag Tag hunters must use sporting arms approved for whichever season is open. For example, when only archery season is open, an Ag Tag hunter must use archery gear.
Allowing farmers to thrive
Pennsylvania agricultural officials are applauding the improved collaboration between hunters and farmers looking to combat crop damage.
“By bringing farmers, landowners, hunters and conservation partners to the same table, we’re protecting crops, strengthening our agricultural economy, and ensuring working farms remain viable for generations to come,” Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture Russell Redding said during a town hall Feb. 11 at the Great American Outdoor Show in Harrisburg.
Pennsylvania Farm Bureau President Chris Hoffman voiced thanks at that meeting for new tools and resources that support farmers.
The bureau is “elated to be able to continue to collaborate with the Pennsylvania Game Commission on the development of the Certified Hunter Program,” he said.
“These discussions are vital to finding adequate solutions to wildlife issues that our farmers face every day,” Hoffman continued. “We are excited to continue to partner with industry stakeholders to drive meaningful change to allow our farmers to thrive.”
Strohecker told the Board of Game Commissioners the story of one farmer who was finally able to harvest a field he’d planted for two years only to have deer decimate it, prior to enrolling in the Certified Hunter Program.
“This year he was able to get a crop out of that field,” he said.
The program also encourages participating hunters to consider donating venison to Hunters Sharing the Harvest.
That effort has continued to see record amounts of venison donated through cooperating processors across the state, according to the Game Commission. During the 2024-25 license year, hunters set an all-time high venison donation record with 283,789 pounds donated from 7,855 deer. That’s enough for around 1.1 million servings of lean, nutritious meat for food-insecure Pennsylvanians.
Visit the Game Commission’s Certified Hunter Program webpage via pa.gov to learn more.