Pennsylvania hunters may soon be prohibited from using dogs to hunt furbearer species during regular deer and bear firearm seasons.
This was recently announced by the Pennsylvania Game Commission.
An official with the Pennsylvania Game Commission that we spoke with says this is still preliminary where a hunter we spoke with says he would support the idea to ban hunting dogs during big game season.
The Pennsylvania Board of Game commission recently gathered in Erie PA and gave preliminary approval of a potential ban that would prohibit the use of dogs to hunt furbearer species – like coyotes – during regular deer or bear season.
“There is definitely some concern expressed by hunters to the game commission about the use of coyote dogs during big game seasons,”
Lau said some concerns hunters brought forward is the use of dogs to hunt big game like deer or bears and also hunters being disrupted by hunting dogs running around.
“During the firearms deer season, most other hunting is prohibited, The small game seasons closed, coyotes are an exception to the general rule where the other seasons are closed where hunters in the deer season if they have a valid deer tag or furbearer license their allowed to hunt coyotes during the day during the firearm deer season. There’s another exception because there’s an overlap in parts of the state anyway in the firearms deer and bear seasons.”
Lau says if this change gets approval he believes it would prohibit dogs entirely during the stretch of the firearms deer season and a Pennsylvania hunter we spoke with says he would support this potential change.
“Yeah I would never think of doing that to bring a dog in hunting a deer or a bear, I know a lot of hunters, I haven’t myself that if they see a coyote there going to, you know shoot it, but if it’s a dog that looks like a coyote it could get shot.”
With this potential ban, hunting of coyotes with dogs would be prohibited during big game season and is something the Pennsylvania Board of Game commissioners would have to revisit before it gets full approval.
“This is still a proposal at this point,”
The Pennsylvania Game Commission will revisit this idea again in January before making a final decision.
