Pa. Game Commission says game-law violations dip slightly

Wildlife game law violations dipped slightly last fiscal year compared to the year before, according to the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s recently released 2020 annual report.

The Game Commission said it pursued 6,708 prosecutions for alleged game-law violations during the fiscal year that ended June 30, down 1.7% from the year before. Of the cases initiated last fiscal year, 6,038 were successfully prosecuted, while 471 citations were withdrawn or dismissed and 210 were unsuccessful, the report said.

The top game-law violation last year was for unlawful taking of game or wildlife, with game wardens issuing 1,072 citations, according to the commission. Other top violations included operating a motorized vehicle on state game lands or cooperator property (538 citations) and hunting without the required license (493 citations).

The top 10 violations have remained similar over the years, but the commission said Chronic Wasting Disease regulation violations were new to the top 10 list last year, while failure to wear the required amount of fluorescent orange and safety zone violations fell from the list.

The commission’s Executive Director Bryan Burhans presented the agency’s 2020 annual report to the state General Assembly and testimony before the House Game and Fisheries Committee this week. Highlights from the report include:

• In recent years, Pennsylvania deer hunters have harvested more deer per square mile than any state in the nation. Pennsylvania hunters harvested an estimated 389,431 white-tailed deer during the 2019-20 hunting season, up slightly from the 374,690 harvested the year before.

• Commission staff developed and launched the Wildlife on WiFi, or WoW, a new program for home-based learning with online lessons, activities and resources to learn about wildlife and conservation.

• Covid-19 increased the demands placed on the Game Commission as more people wanted to hunt and trap, visit state game lands and purchase commission products. Visitors to state game lands increased dramatically; parking spaces were at a premium.

• Wildlife Futures and the Game Commission developed and validated covid-19 testing for bats. The testing allows the commission’s wildlife rehabilitation permittees to return injured bats back to the wild and prevent bat and human covid-19 exposure.

• The commission has two dogs in the first phase of a pilot research project to train dogs to detect Chronic Wasting Disease.

• The Game Commission supports opening additional Sundays to hunting. The agency plans to work with lawmakers to craft legislation giving full authority to the Board of Commissioners to offer additional Sunday hunting opportunities.

Additionally, the agency has been seeing an uptick in hunting license sales. Hunting license sales for 2020-21 will not be final until July 1, when the new license year begins, said Game Commission spokesman Travis Lau. “But sales so far in 2020-21 have exceeded totals for 2019-20,” he said.