{"id":165733,"date":"2026-04-14T20:20:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T20:20:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/165733\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T20:20:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T20:20:20","slug":"pennsylvania-adds-12-more-antlerless-deer-licenses-to-last-years-record-allocation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/165733\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania adds 12% more antlerless deer licenses to last year\u2019s record allocation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pennsylvania Game Commission will allocate a record-high 1,469,000 antlerless deer licenses<\/a> statewide for the 2026-27 hunting season.<\/p>\n

That represents an increase of 157,000, or 12%, from the previous record allocation of 1,312,000 licenses in 2025-26<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Commission officials announced the allocations at the Board of Game Commissioners\u2019 quarterly meeting Saturday in Harrisburg.<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania residents are once again guaranteed an antlerless license in the Wildlife Management Unit<\/a> of their choice when sales begin June 22.<\/p>\n

Board approval is not required for the allocation, which is determined by commission biologists to meet deer-population objectives.<\/p>\n

Commission Deer and Elk Section Supervisor David Stainbrook in a presentation Friday to the board explained some of the science behind the numbers.<\/p>\n

White-tailed deer populations are stable statewide except in WMU 2B, where they are increasing, and in 4E, which has seen a decline.<\/p>\n

For 2026-27, the Game Commission\u2019s objective is to reduce the population in all Wildlife Management Units except 3A in extreme north-central Pennsylvania, where the goal is to stabilize the population.<\/p>\n

The spread of Chronic Wasting Disease<\/a> plays a role in the commission\u2019s objectives, Stainbrook said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo for this year, those previous years\u2019 objectives to reduce populations, which are mainly in response to CWD, will be continued,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Planning for the upcoming license year comes as Pennsylvania hunters killed an estimated 505,600 whitetails in 2025-26<\/a>, second only to the 2002-03 harvest.<\/p>\n

The Game Commission sold 837,791 general hunting licenses in 2025, down about 20% from 2000.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is statewide, but the way we manage is unit by unit,\u201d Stainbrook said. \u201cAnd most of our management units, we\u2019ve been able to meet the harvest goals and objectives.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the commission is \u201cable to do this with the current number of hunters simply by increasing the antlerless license allocations with the current season structure in place in most of our units.\u201d<\/p>\n

The commission also offers extended seasons in select WMUs to meet its goals.<\/p>\n

Under the 2026-27 seasons and bag limits approved by the board<\/a> Saturday, extended regular firearms seasons for antlerless deer are being held:<\/p>\n

Dec. 26-Jan. 18, 2027, in WMUs 4A, 4C, 4D and 5A.<\/p>\n

Dec. 26-Jan. 24, 2027, in WMUs 2B, 5C and 5D and statewide on properties enrolled in the Deer Management Assistance Program (DMAP).<\/p>\n

The increases in antlerless license allocations vary by Wildlife Management Unit, with WMU 4D seeing the largest jump from 83,000 to 120,000 licenses. WMU 2C will see an increase from 93,000 to 117,000 licenses, while WMU 2D rises from 96,000 to 112,000.<\/p>\n

Several units maintained the same allocations as last year, including WMU 1B at 44,000, WMU 2G at 57,000, WMU 3A at 21,000, WMU 3B at 53,000, WMU 3C at 57,000, WMU 3D at 52,000, WMU 4A at 64,000, WMU 4C at 51,000, WMU 4E at 61,000 and WMU 5B at 86,000.<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania resident hunters will receive a guaranteed antlerless deer license in the WMU of their choice if they purchase before sales open to nonresidents. The guaranteed period runs from 8 a.m. on June 22, when 2026-27 hunting licenses go on sale, through 8 a.m. on July 13.<\/p>\n

Nonresidents become eligible to purchase antlerless licenses at 8 a.m. on July 13 in units where licenses remain available.<\/p>\n

Additional rounds of sales allow hunters to purchase more licenses. The second round begins July 27 at 8 a.m., the third round starts Aug. 10 at 8 a.m. and the fourth round opens Aug. 24 at 8 a.m.<\/p>\n

Hunters can purchase up to six active antlerless licenses.<\/p>\n

After the guaranteed period ends, all antlerless licenses are sold on a first-come, first-served basis until allocations for each WMU are exhausted.<\/p>\n

more outdoors news<\/p>\n

Read the original article on pennlive.com<\/a>. Add pennlive.com<\/a> as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pennsylvania Game Commission will allocate a record-high 1,469,000 antlerless deer licenses statewide for the 2026-27 hunting season.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[31948,74651,28,9183,30,29,61825,74650,66664],"class_list":{"0":"post-165733","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-antlerless-deer","9":"tag-hunting-licenses","10":"tag-pennsylvania","11":"tag-pennsylvania-game-commission","12":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","13":"tag-pennsylvania-news","14":"tag-pennsylvania-residents","15":"tag-wildlife-management-unit","16":"tag-wmu"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}