A Pennsylvania Game commissioner has asked staff to explore the possibility of eliminating the purchase limit for antlerless deer licenses.

Commissioner Dennis Fredericks, who represents part of southwestern Pennsylvania, made the pitch at a meeting earlier this month.

According to the PGC, the current regulations allow a hunter to possess up to six unfilled antlerless deer licenses.

“Most hunters do not purchase that many,” the commission said in a statement. “Antlerless licenses in many wildlife management units sell out during the initial rounds for mail-in application and before over-the-counter sales begin.”

But the commission notes that the limit affects some hunters in Special Regulations Areas.

The proposal then, Fredericks acknowledged, would have little effect in most areas but would accommodate some.

“Regardless of any future board action on a hunter’s personal limit of antlerless deer licenses,” the PGC said, “the antlerless deer harvest will continue to be controlled by the number of licenses allocated.”

The southcentral Pennsylvania commissioner, Michael Mitrick, also asked staff to develop regulations that would potentially ban the use of urine-based deer attractants.

State Game Commission staff provided information to the board earlier this month “on the risk attractants pose in the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease, which is always fatal to deer and elk.”

Road-killed deer disposal option approved

It’s been a long-standing dispute — if a deer is killed on the road, whose responsibility is it to pick it up? PennDOT or the PGC?

The commission has expanded the range of people who can dispose of road-killed door to include “nuisance wildlife control operators.”

These are individuals already permitted by the PGC.

“Each year, the Game Commission receives thousands of calls from the public concerning deer carcasses along roadways and on private property,” the PGC said in a statement. “The agency often will assign its wardens to collect and properly dispose of these carcasses as their schedules and work duties permit, which in some cases doesn’t meet residents’ expectations.

“Nuisance wildlife control operators will provide the public an additional resource for road-killed deer removal.”