Two senators voice concerns over Pa. Game Commission's ongoing land purchases

How much public hunting land should be owned by the government in Pennsylvania?

That was one of the questions posed to the executive director of the Pennsylvania Game Commission on Feb. 8 because the agency has been acquiring more land in recent years.

Sen. Scott Hutchinson, R-21st Dist., representing northwestern Pennsylvania, brought up his concerns during a meeting of the state Senate's Game & Fisheries Committee. After announcing its most recent land acquisition in January, the agency owns more than 1.6 million acres of public land. That amounts to roughly 5% of the commonwealth's 29 million acres.

“Ultimately, there are philosophical differences here and if you get at the largest sense of philosophical difference, if you think about government ownership of all property, that’s called communism," Hutchinson said. "I’m not saying they own it all now, but over time, as government acquires more land and takes it out of public ownership and or it’s restricted use, the restrictions are owned by the government. Ultimately, that’s not good for our country to have an enormous amount of land owned by the government."

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Sen. Cris Dush, R-25th Dist., in northcentral Pennsylvania, shared similar concerns. “The Game Commission owns more land than the entire state of Delaware," he said.

The comments came after Bryan Burhans, executive director of the Game Commission, gave his agency's annual report to the committee.

Hutchinson also asked about the PGC's land-acquisition strategy, if it has limits on amounts of land it believes it should own, as well as Burhans' thoughts on ownership.

“Do you think it’s prudent to say government should own all the land? Do you think the government should own 10% of the land? Just curious if your agency thinks about that," Hutchinson said. "How much land do we really need to own or should we own in this free enterprise economy?”

Burhans replied that the PGC doesn't have limits on how much land it should it own, but that it does have a land-acquisition strategy. The agency, he said, prioritizes property that is adjacent to or provides more access to existing game lands and indentured properties that are in the area of a game land.

“We don’t prioritize getting all the land we can, but what we do is prioritize the type of projects we do look for,” he said.

Burhans also emphasized the agency's desire for hunting land that is open to all.

“Providing opportunity that’s not limited by class or income or where you sit in the status of society that we have to provide access and opportunity to enjoy wildlife, whether that’s birdwatching, hunting or trapping," Burhans said. "As we’ve seen over the last 60 years, that opportunity for any citizen to go out and recreate has continued to decline. Private landowners have rights, and it’s up to them who they want to allow on it.”

Burhans, who said he does most of his hunting on public lands, added that Pennsylvania is second in the country for hunting license sales and, “I think that accessibility to public lands is absolutely critical."

Hutchinson responded, “We have fewer hunters and you keep increasing the amount of land, that doesn’t seem to jibe, it doesn’t seem to make sense.”

In 2010, the Game Commission sold 647,242 resident adult hunting licenses. In 2022, there were 534,464 resident adult hunters.

In addition to the PGC’s 1.6 million acres, the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources owns 2.5 million acres and the U.S. Forest Service has more than 514,000 acres open to the public with the Allegheny National Forest .

Hutchinson and Dush later criticized the PGC's strategy, claiming it is squeezing out smaller municipalities from owning land to increase their tax bases.

Burhans replied, “We want to provide opportunities for hunters, we are not looking to purchase the entire state of Pennsylvania. Really our goal isn’t to try to purchase more game lands except where it makes sense.”

Brian Whipkey is the outdoors columnist for USA TODAY Network sites in Pennsylvania. Contact him at bwhipkey@gannett.com and sign up for our weekly Go Outdoors PA newsletter email on this website's homepage under your login name. Follow him on Facebook @whipkeyoutdoors, and Instagram at whipkeyoutdoors.

This article originally appeared on The Daily American: Where can you hunt in Pennsylvania?