HARRISBURG (TNS) — After being unable to vote because of the lack of a quorum of commissioners at the January meeting, the Pennsylvania Board of Game Commissioners again has enough commissioners to conduct official business.

Commissioners Stanley Knick Jr., of Dupont, and Michael Mitrick, of York, were reappointed to the District 7 and District 6 seats on the board, bringing the body back to a quorum of commissioners.

With those reappointments, there are seven commissioners on the board. The District 8 seat remains vacant, as does the new District 9 seat, which was created and approved by the General Assembly and Governor since the commissioners’ January 28-29 meeting.

The board, which is required by law to hold a meeting in January, met Jan. 28-29 in Harrisburg, hearing reports from Game Commission staff and accepting public comment. The board, however, was unable to take up its prepared agenda because a quorum of six commissioners is needed to conduct official business, and only five commissioners were seated at the time.

The board’s next meeting is scheduled for April 8 and 9 in Harrisburg, at which time the board will pick up the agenda items set aside in January.

However, the commission noted, “rather than voting preliminarily on the proposed 2022-23 hunting and trapping seasons and bag limits — a move that could interrupt timely updates to the regulations digest hunters and trappers receive with their licenses — the board will opt to reactivate the framework from last year’s seasons and bag limits, as permitted by law.”

That means the statewide firearms deer season will start the Saturday after Thanksgiving, the statewide regular bear season will begin the Saturday before that, and so on.

The preliminary list of 2022-23 seasons and bag limits that was to be considered by the board in January is almost a mirror image of the list from 2021-22. Only a few minor changes — none of them driven by a biological need — were recommended.

That means hunters and trappers will end up with essentially the same list through reactivating last year’s seasons as they would have through a vote to approve the proposed list.

The Game Commission still will be adjusting allocations for antlerless deer licenses and elk licenses based on updated harvest and population data. The Board of Commissioners will approve the allocations in April.

The newly formed District 9 is made up of Carbon, Berks, Lehigh, Monroe, Northampton and Schuylkill counties.

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