HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania hunters, anglers, and boaters are utilizing the outdoors at relatively high rates, according to recent reports from state commissions, despite the turbulence of the pandemic and a decline of licensing in some areas.
The Pa. Game Commission and Pa. Fish and Boat Commission presented their most recent annual reports to the state Senate Game & Fisheries Committee last week, indicating that Pennsylvanians still have a strong appetite for the outdoors, albeit less in some cases than it once was.
Pennsylvania has retained some of its pandemic recreation boost.
Data from the Fish and Boat Commission continue to show that the boom in fishing and boating licenses during the peak of COVID-19 has slacked off, but that interest remains higher than the pre-pandemic baseline.
Pennsylvania issued over 790,000 fishing licenses in 2023, which when combined with multi-year licenses puts the state at about 850,000 current active anglers, Fish and Boat Commission Executive Director Tim Schaeffer said.
This is down from the 2020 peak, where the commission issued over 934,000 fishing licenses in a single year, but still up from the 777,000 licenses issued in 2019, and “we’re happy to see that we’ve held onto those gains and we’re up a little” since before the pandemic, Schaeffer said.
Registration for powered boats has also seen a decline that may be due to fuel prices, Schaeffer said. But launch permits for kayaks and other non-motorized boats are up 20% versus 2019, and the commission has seen a “monumental growth in unpowered boating” that has sustained itself post-pandemic, Schaeffer said.
Hunting license sales have also been experiencing a decades-long decline, seeing a small boost during the height of the pandemic, but quickly dropping back down, with the game commission reporting just under 845,000 general licenses sold in 2022, the lowest in many years.
However, Game Commission Executive Director Bryan Burhans reported high levels of activity. The 2022-23 license year saw over 422,000 deer killed — runner-up to the recent-record total of more than 435,000 during 2020-21 — along with 3,175 black bears, over 47,000 turkeys, and more.
“We continue to produce some of the largest deer harvests in the country, some of the heaviest bears, and some of the biggest elk,” Burhans said.
Both commissions also, in many cases, provide hunters’ and anglers’ quarry themselves. The game commission stocked 225,000 pheasants in the last season, Burhans said; the fish and boat commission is stocking 3.2 million trout per season, with another million stocked by local fishing clubs with the commission’s help.
The game commission also invests significant resources into tracking and monitoring the health of animal populations, including inspecting 23,000 deer carcasses during hunting season and even doing research on non-game species such as the mapping of endangered bat colonies, Burhans said.
Hunting and fishing relies on a massive amount of infrastructure and cash
Both commissions have pumped millions of dollars into capital improvement. For the fish and boat commission, this includes the repair of boat launches and the dams that support fishing spots – such as the recent reconstruction of Children’s Lake in Boiling Springs.
The game commission – which owns roughly 1.6 million acres across the state – added thousands of acres to its portfolio this year, Burhans said, along with improving 55 miles of roads, 28 bridges, and six new firearm shooting ranges in the past two years along with two archery ranges.
The game commission’s expansion generated some questions from Sens. Scott Hutchinson, R-Venango County, and Cris Dush, R-Jefferson County, both of whose districts include large amounts of game land.
The commission’s purchases of property despite a declining number of hunters “doesn’t seem to make sense,” Hutchinson observed, asking if the commission had “an upper limit on the percentage of land that should be in government-slash-game commission ownership going forward.”
The commission doesn’t prioritize buying land just for the sake of having it, Burhans said, but “what we do prioritize is the projects we look for,” specifically land where there is a “significant wildlife interest.”
The fish and boat commission ran a budget of just over $68.4 million last fiscal year between its fishing and boating funds combined, with both funds running primarily off of licensing revenue and federal excise taxes.
Until recently, the game commission operated similarly, running budgets of around $100 million primarily using hunting license revenue and conservation grants, according to commission data shared with the Senate.
But these numbers started to gradually increase in 2018-19, and exploded in the past two fiscal cycles, with the commission booking over $448 million in revenue in 2022-23 and spending $201 million.
This windfall is due to energy prices; the commission leases the ground under state game lands for horizontal drilling by adjacent oil and gas companies, and collects royalties that shot up largely due to geopolitical forces, such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Those funds are being used to expand the commission’s training center, its biological research facility, education buildings, and more, Burhans told legislators. Committee chair Sen. Greg Rothman, R-Cumberland County, cautioned against the commission adding significant amounts of recurring expenses, given recent declines in energy prices that will reduce the commission’s revenue in coming years.
