Pennsylvania’s estimated deer harvest up 6% in ’25-26; archers lead buck take

Harrisburg — Pennsylvania hunters harvested about 6% more deer in the 2025-26 hunting seasons than they did the year before, according to Pennsylvania Game Commission estimates.

The statewide 2025-26 deer harvest was estimated at 505,600 deer, 185,310 of them antlered and 320,290 antlerless.

By comparison, the statewide 2024-25 harvest was estimated at 476,880 deer.

The year-over-year increase is equally attributable to rises in the antlered and antlerless deer harvests. Both were about 6% higher than the year before.

It’s notable, however, that 2025-26’s antlered deer harvest was up about 9% over the most-recent three-year average, and the antlerless harvest was about 17% higher.

That was partly by design, in regard to antlerless harvest, said Game Commission Deer and Elk Section Supervisor David Stainbrook.

The objective in most of the state’s 22 wildlife management units was to reduce deer numbers, either because deer were negatively impacting forest health, chronic wasting disease is present and increasing harvest might slow the spread, or both.

To help meet those harvest objectives and expand hunter opportunity, the Game Commission offered additional antlerless licenses last season.

That hunters responded – helping guide local deer populations toward target levels by buying hunting licenses, obtaining available antlerless deer tags and filling them – is no surprise, said Game Commission Executive Director Steve Smith.

For more than century, hunters have been a powerful force for conservation, he noted.

“Pennsylvania has a strong hunting heritage, one that brings hundreds of thousands of hunters together in groups large and small each fall and winter to enjoy days with family and friends,” Smith said. “But this is about more than just fun and tradition.

Deer are one species that can impact the composition of their own environment, with consequences not just for themselves, but for our forests and fields and all the other wildlife that habitat sustains, Smith added.

“Hunters, by managing deer, buoy not only deer, but all our other natural resources,” he said. “Their time afield is a commitment to stewardship that deserves our thanks.”

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The Game Commission’s harvest estimates are calculated using antlered and antlerless harvest reports submitted by hunters in combination with data from deer checked at processors across the state, Stainbrook explained.

Last season, hunters reported more than 150,000 deer – by far most often using the online reporting form – and Game Commission personnel checked more than 25,000 deer at processors.

Statewide, about 29% of deer hunters took an antlered deer. That’s the highest success rate since at least 2007.

Most of those bucks were older ones, too. Two of every three were at least 2.5 years old.

Meanwhile, hunters turned about 25% of antlerless tags into harvested deer. That’s consistent with past seasons, as is the fact about 70% of those deer were adult females.

Season breakdown

Looking at the harvests by season, hunters once again took more deer overall in the regular statewide firearms deer season than in any other. It accounted for an estimated 299,230 deer, counting 89,980 antlered and 209,250 antlerless.

Archers, meanwhile, took an estimated 182,190 deer, 94,290 of them antlered and 87,900 antlerless. Muzzleloader hunters got 24,180 deer, 1,040 of them antlered and 23,140 antlerless.

It’s worth noting that firearms seasons account for the majority of the harvest in most wildlife management units. Archery harvests make up the majority in more-developed units (such as WMUs 2B, 5C and 5D), where the use of firearms might be more restricted.

Archery hunting is critical, Stainbrook said, to effectively manage deer in those more-suburban areas.

The 2025-26 Deer Harvest Estimates report can be found alongside harvest estimates from other years on the commissions white-tailed deer web page.