Safety concerns brought by hunters on the overlap of pheasant and deer seasons has the state Game Commissioner looking at some changes.

Recent complaints from hunters in Lancaster County spurred Jim Daley of Cranberry Township, one of the eight-member Game Commission board, into speaking against the overlap of some seasons in October.

“My idea was to eliminate the one day of overlap,” Daley said.

The Game Commission discussed tweaks to various hunting regulations at a working group meeting earlier this month. Proposed changes include the lengths of multiple seasons and bag limits.

Daley, the commissioner for Region 1, which includes Butler County, said the overlap of hunting seasons for pheasant and deer overpopulates some popular hunting locations, increasing the possibility of accidents occurring.

Select hunting of deer occurs in October, which acts as a firearms deer season for those with special permits and a muzzleloader season for regular permit-holders. The final day of this deer season coincided with the first day of pheasant season this year.

“There are risks if we allow these two seasons to overlap,” Daley said.

Bob Stephenson, president of the Butler Hunting and Fishing Club, which has 1,800 members, said overlaps happen with other animals and extend over longer periods of the hunting season. He said this movement could be an overreaction, and noted that archery season for whitetail deer and small game seasons have coexisted without much incident.

“I don't see much difference,” he said. “It could be a potential hazard there, but isn't there in all of hunting?”

Stephenson said he understands the need to protect hunters and trusts the Game Commission to make these decisions because they also prioritize the animals.

“Whenever they make changes, it's for the good of the wildlife,” he said.

Commissioners also discussed changes to bag limitations and lengths of seasons based on the analysis of their biologists throughout this season.

“I don't see any major changes,” Daley said.

The majority of proposed changes before the commission deal with regulations surrounding hunting seasons for birds, including continuing last year's moratorium on the post-Christmas hunting of ruffed grouse, and other tweaks to pheasant season.

Daley said the commission needs to continue to find balance in the way it prepares for pheasant season. He said a few years ago stocking pheasants cost the commission about $4 million. The commission has since added permits and became more selective in its choice of pheasant farms, which helped trim $2 million from the program.

“We really changed the way we raise pheasants,” he said.

Daley said he's not a fan of stocking pheasants, but he acknowledges that many still enjoy hunting the birds.

“It's one of those programs I wouldn't mind losing, if only to the adult hunters,” he said.

Daley said there are still other areas that the commission would like to focus on — including the prevention of lead poisoning of eagles. He would like to see a push for more education on how hunters can prevent their ammunition from being ingested by the birds, which also scavenge occasionally.

Daley said tree stands have been an area of concern that could be addressed in the future.

“There's more hunters that get hurt falling out of their stands than there are in shooting accidents, historically,” he said. “We're trying to put a lot more effort into what's causing these (falls.)”

<em>Below is a list of regulation changes discussed by state game commissioners for the 2018-19 hunting seasons at a Dec.18 meeting.</em>Preliminary approval for next season’s regulations will be given at the commission’s meeting in Harrisburg from Jan. 26 to Jan. 28. Final adoption and setting of doe license numbers will be in April.The Somerset County pheasant recovery area might close due to poor results in creating a sustainable wild pheasant population.Eliminating gender discrimination in hunting pheasants in wildlife management Units 2A, 2C, 4C and 5B, which along with Units 4E and 5A, meant hens were off limits. Commissioners said the former group of units could eliminate the no-hen rule because they lack a population of wild hens regardless while the latter two units would remain harvesting males only.Fisher trapping could be allowed in 4B and 4C.A one-week reduction in the length of bobcat seasons could be implemented.Black bear hunting season for 3A could be extended six days, instead of last year’s four, and 4A and 5A could see a four-day extension to their season.Extending the moratorium on the post-Christmas grouse season into 2018. This year the Game Commission closed that season due to habitat loss and the spread of West Nile virus among the animals. Both problems continue to be an issue.The October muzzleloader and firearms deer season for juniors and seniors could be moved or tweaked to avoid interfering with the first day of pheasant hunting.