House subcommittee shoots down Sunday hunting

A House of Delegates subcommittee shot down abill Wednesday that would have allowed hunting on Sundays.

The measure, SB464, had sailed through the Senate, but similar bills were pulled by House patrons last week. The bill would have lifted a long-standing ban on Sunday hunting as long as hunters had the property owner's written permission.

A subcommittee of the House Committee on Agriculture, Chesapeake and Natural Resources first voted 4-3 to turn down an amendment that would have limited Sunday hunting to military bases and, for young hunters, to Wildlife Management Areas.

The subcommittee's chairman, R.L. Ware, R-Powhatan, called for a vote on the entire bill after a motion by Del. James Edmunds, with the 5-1 vote against  effectively killing it for the year.

Ware said supporters of Sunday hunting were well-organized and "certainly put forward a strong case."

But he added, "The hunters themselves are not speaking with one voice on this issue. We also heard from a number of people who said it's served us well to make that accommodation to nonhunters on Sundays."

"I did expect this," said Kirby Burch of the Virginia Hunting Dog Alliance, a group representing hunt clubs opposed to Sunday hunting. "A majority of hunters in Virginia simply don't want Sunday hunting. But it will be back next year for sure."

Proponents of Sunday hunting immediately cried foul, calling Wednesday's early-morning meeting an attempt to kill the bill as quickly and quietly as possible. They pointed out that the same House committee just passed a bill increasing the number of hours that hound hunters are allowed to use their dogs to chase bears on Sundays, providing hunters had no weapons - a practice similar to that of fox chasing.

"Sunday hunting in Virginia exists, just not with guns. This is nothing more than a slap in the face of the rights of property owners," said Joe Ficarra, a Virginia Beach hunter who two decades ago had himself arrested for hunting on Sunday in an act of civil disobedience designed to bring attention to the law. "Tell me how 40-some other states allow hunting on Sunday and they don't have any problems with this."

Matt O'Brien, who runs the Facebook page Legalize Virginia Sunday Hunting for All, had mixed emotions.

"This year has been a victory in the effort. From last year getting two votes, to getting 29 in the Senate and to losing by just one in House Agriculture shows that the tide is changing and it's rushing our way," he said. "What upsets me the most is that the other side wasn't willing to compromise one bit. We went from full repeal, to just on private land, to no dogs, to staying away from churches, then to military bases and Wildlife Management Areas for kids - the full gambit of compromise. And the other side wouldn't give anything."

Ficarra vowed that the fight will continue.

"I'm afraid that the only way to get this resolved is to test it in court on the basis of the Constitution," he said. "Because this isn't an old law. Shoot, George Washington probably died of a cold he caught while hunting on Sunday."

Michael Sluss of The Roanoke Times contributed to this report.

Lee Tolliver, 757-222-5844,lee.tolliver@pilotonline.com