PENNSYLVANIA (WHP) — Pennsylvania lawmakers will introduce a bill to return the start of firearm hunting season to the first Monday after Thanksgiving, according to a legal memo.
Senate Bill 1244 will be introduced by Sen. Gene Yaw (R-23) and Sen. Lisa Boscola (D-18) to affect the “devastating economic effect” of moving opening day to the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
In the memo, Yaw and Boscola claim that rural businesses like taverns, restaurants, small grocery stores, gun shops, and volunteer fire departments.
“The traditions associated with going to hunting camps in anticipation of opening day created a concentration of economic activity unique to rural Pennsylvania,” the memo noted.
Rural businesses flourished and benefited from the economic bump needed to survive the winter, while volunteer fire departments held special hunter-oriented fundraisers.
Lawmakers said the decision to return opening day to the Saturday after Thanksgiving came in response to the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s suggestion to move opening day before Thanksgiving.
What that proposal did was rekindle the absolute rejection of the current opening day among our constituents and throughout rural Pennsylvania in general.
The bill claims that the scope of the decision goes beyond just managing and protecting the Commonwealth’s wildlife resources. Lawmakers claim in the bill that the PGC’s decisions impacts the livelihood of its constituents, it becomes a legislative concern.
It is time to move the first day of firearms deer season in Pennsylvania back to the first Monday after Thanksgiving to revive traditions long held by our sportsmen and women and invest, once again, in rural Pennsylvania.
The bill was referred to a game and fisheries committee in the Senate on March 23.