Use of a tree stand harness is critical to being safe while in an elevated stand.
Photo: Howard Communicaitons
It ain’t over yet.
Not necessarily, anyway.
Pennsylvania Game Commissioners tabled a proposal requiring hunters using tree stands on state game lands to wear “a full-body safety harness and tether system capable of supporting their weight during a fall.” It would be required from the time a hunter leaves the ground until he or she returns.
But the delay was termed more procedural than philosophical.
Several said the regulation change could come back up for a vote soon. That could be as early as the board’s next meeting, likely in April. If given preliminary approval then, final approval of the regulation could follow at the board’s summer meeting.
That would put the rule into effect this fall.
As for why the delay, that’s a matter of language.
Commissioner Michael Mitrick of York said the section of the game code to which the regulation would have been added references not just game lands. It also mentions private properties enrolled in the commission’s various public access programs.
Commissioners are not looking to put any safety harness rules in place on those properties, Mitrick said.
“I think we would have a lot of pushback from private landowners if we were to do that,” agreed commissioner Jim Daley of Butler County.
So the wording of the regulation needs addressed.
At the same time, the board has some other issues to “get worked out,” said commissioner Brian Hoover of Chester County.
“One is how are we going to enforce it,” Hoover said.
If and when enacted, violation of the safety harness regulation would carry a fine. it would be $100 to $200, plus court costs, said Randy Shoup, director of the commission’s bureau of wildlife protection.
But to be determined, Hoover said, is whether game wardens would walk the woods checking hunters in their stands, or monitor compliance as hunters enter and exit the woods.
The agency needs a “standard operating procedure,” Hoover said.
There’s also the issue of the variety of stands out there.
Some hunters, Hoover noted, hunt from elevated positions, but not from trees. They use tripod stands and raised blinds, for instance. Harnesses and tether systems are not applicable to those.
He said any rule would need to include those somehow.
“There’s still a lot of work to be done on this before we move it forward,” Hoover added.
Support for mandating harness use is not unanimous among commissioners. Hoover and Daley earlier at the meeting backed it. Commissioner Stanley Knick of Luzerne County did not. He called the decision on whether to use a safety harness a “personal choice.”
That said, board members all agree that hunters who get off the ground should use one, Hoover said.
“I don’t think there’s any disagreement there at all. It’s whether or not we have the wherewithal to enforce that regulation and the way to do it,” Hoover said.
In the meantime, the commission will try to educate hunters about the need to wear a tree stand harness.
“We really need to put on a vigorous education campaign, to make people know it’s coming and understand the importance of it,” said commissioner Charlie Fox of Bradford County.
Commission staff will attempt to reach hunters several ways, said executive director Bryan Burhans. That will include its hunting digest, Facebook and the media.
