Pennsylvania Game News - March 2011 - 7

Despite the increase in spring hunter numbers, incident rates have not increased, indicating that today’s spring turkey hunters are hunting smarter and safer. Fall turkey hunters have been required to wear or display orange since 1992. The required use of fluorescent orange has contributed to better safety records in many types of hunting. There has been no change in orange requirements since the fall of 1995. The recent, encouraging, decline in fall turkey hunting incident rates began in 2003 and has continued since then. In that year, small game season opening dates were changed so that they no longer coincided with the opening of the fall turkey season. This change may have had some influence on HRSIs by reducing the number of hunters afield on the opening day of fall turkey season. The fall turkey season structure itself did not change (until last fall), so turkey hunting regulation changes do not seem to have played a part in the decline. The role of the media in affecting turkey HRSIs is hard to gauge. When there has been extensive media attention on turkey hunting safety, the number of incidents has declined. The terribly high number of fall HRSIs in 1990 and 1991 (38 and 37) prompted regulation changes requiring fall hunters to wear orange. Incident rates declined precipitously the next year, to only six, but the media attention associated with the regulation change no doubt had an impact. Also, from 1991 to ’92, fall turkey hunter numbers dropped by more than 40,000. One shooting incident is one too many, but the recent low incident rates in the fall are very encouraging. There is still much work to do to promote safety, not only in the fall but in the spring season as well. Every hunter needs to understand that being involved in a hunting-related shooting incident is serious. In every case, the lives of the shooter and the victim are changed forever. Often the shooter cannot believe that he or she could do such a
MARCH 2011

thing. Depending on how serious the injury to the victim is, the injured hunter may never recover from being shot. And for the shooter, insurance claims and litigation often stem from these incidents Of course, there are other legal ramifications for the shooter. Anyone involved in a hunting related shooting incident in which someone is injured is required to report the incident to the Game Commission within 72 hours. In addition, the shooter is required by law to render immediate assistance to the victim. Statutes describing the extent of injury and the penalties for hunting related shooting incidents are covered in the Game and Wildlife Code. There are three ascending gradients describing the nature of the offense and penalties brought to bear on the shooter in an HRSI. The first is a summary level offense. Falling into this category are incidents in which a hunter shoots at another hunter and either does not hit the victim or cause bodily injury. The definition of “bodily injury” is “impairment of physical condition or substantial pain.” In other words, any incident that results in someone being frightened because another individual shot at him or any case where a hunter is hit with shot or a bullet, even when the injury is not debilitating, can result in prosecution. Conviction of a summary violation of the first degree will result in a fine of $1,000 to $1,500 and imprisonment for up to three months. The penalty also includes mandatory 2-year loss of hunting privileges. An HRSI in which the victim suffers serious bodily injury is classified as a misdemeanor of the second degree. “Serious bodily injury” is defined as, “bodily injury that creates a substantial risk of death or which causes serious permanent disfigurement or
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Pennsylvania Game News - March 2011

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