HARRISBURG (TNS) — Pennsylvania’s centuries-old ban on Sunday hunting is now fully ended, as Gov. Josh Shapiro signed a bill into law Wednesday that will allow the state game commission to open up an unlimited number of Sundays to hunt.

The longstanding prohibition is “a relic of the earliest days of this commonwealth” and one that “doesn’t make sense anymore” given the pace of modern life and Pennsylvania’s burgeoning deer population, Shapiro said Wednesday during a bill-signing ceremony at the Blue Ridge Sportsman Club in northern Dauphin County.

The idea of opening up Sundays to hunting has been floated for years as a way to attract more Pennsylvanians to the hobby, given that the number of hunters in the state has been on a broad decline over several decades.

In 2019, the state’s game law was amended to allow the Pennsylvania Game Commission to schedule three Sundays for hunting, including one during deer archery season and another during deer rifle season. Hunting is otherwise allowed on Sundays only for crows, coyotes, and foxes.

The three-day lift of the Sunday hunting ban “showed that Sunday hunting would work in the commonwealth and paved the way” for the complete repeal that will go into effect 60 days from Wednesday’s signing, just in time for the fall deer season, said Game Commission Executive Director Steve Smith.

The broad ban on Sunday hunting was “incredibly unpopular to enforce,” Smith said, and being able to schedule more Sunday hunts during deer, turkey and bear seasons will “significantly increase our ability to recruit and retain new hunters.”

For years, measures to completely eliminate the Sunday hunting rule had run into staunch opposition from farmers who voiced concerns about hunters trespassing on croplands.

But farmers — including the influential Pennsylvania Farm Bureau — gradually came around to the idea, as crop damage from excessive deer populations increased. Legislators also pledged to package Sunday hunting with tighter anti-trespassing laws, which the bill signed Wednesday includes.

“Every time you turn around, there’s a deer damage concern,” said Secretary of Agriculture Russell Redding. Completely eliminating the Sunday hunting ban is a chance for a “symbiotic relationship” between hunters and farmers, Redding said.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Mandy Steele, D-Allegheny County, overcame some remaining opposition from outdoor groups who wanted Sundays to remain gunfire-free, as well as a late-breaking controversy over whether deer urine used as a lure should be tested for chronic wasting disease (CWD).

But there was a bipartisan push to get the bill through, according to Steele and other lawmakers. While Sunday hunting may seem like an issue that speaks more to rural, conservative constituents, Democrats saw it as a chance to break a perceived divide in cultural politics, Steele said.

“This has kind of become an area that’s thought of as Republican — guns and hunting,” Steele said earlier this week, “but this is a Democrat-sponsored bill that is heading to a Democratic governor’s desk.”

Exactly how many Sundays will be included in a given hunting season has yet to be determined by the game commission, Smith said, but is being discussed by the commission’s board in consultation with wildlife biologists and law enforcement.

“All I can tell [hunters] as of today is ‘stay tuned and buy your hunting license,’” Smith said.