The Pennsylvania Game Commission’s decision to change decades of deer-hunting tradition in 2019 with a Saturday firearms opener was met with strong opposition.

Last year, the firearms buck season began on a Saturday instead of the traditional first Monday after Thanksgiving. The decision was not popular among many hunters, who supported the traditional opening day on the first Monday after Thanksgiving.

Many opponents of the Saturday opener and Sunday hunting said the change was a money grab by the commission and did nothing for the state’s sportsmen.

Why mess with tradition, they argued.

The commission said the change was part of its plan to increase hunting opportunities in the state.

The commission argued that hunters will have more days to hunt, especially those who only have Saturday and Sundays off from work. It hoped this would bring more young people into the sport and more revenue for the state.

“In this day and age, where people lead busy lifestyles and many hunters who drop from the ranks do so because they can’t find the time to hunt, creating opportunity might be the biggest key in keeping hunters active to carry on our traditions and maintain strong wildlife populations,” Bryan Burhans, the commission’s executive director, said at the time.

Well, now the commission has some numbers to bolster its argument in the debate with the traditionalists.

After decades of steady decline, the number of hunting licenses sold in the state showed a slight increase in 2019 according to preliminary results.

Through December, 3,351 more licenses were issued than the year before, when the commission reported license sales declined by 3.4 percent, a loss of more than 30,000 hunters.

Since the peak year for license sales in 1982, sales increased just 13 times in 36 years. The state has 30 percent fewer hunters now than in 1982.

The commission believes there’s a strong correlation between the 2019 Saturday opener and increased license sales, providing reason for optimism that further increases could be achieved in coming years.

It appears the changes may actually have a chance to achieve their main goal — increasing the number of hunters in the state, or least stopping the decline.

The preliminary indications are positive, but only time will tell if the changes will ultimately produce permanent progress.