Why It Matters: As the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF) has covered on many occasions, Massachusetts and Maine remain the only two states in the country with an outright ban on Sunday hunting. On March 19, 2026, Governor Maura Healey announced that her administration seeks to repeal the long-standing prohibition on Sunday hunting in the Bay State. This would, in effect, double the number of huntable days for Massachusetts’s resident hunters and hard-working families that are limited to weekends to go afield. On April 28, 2026, Senior Manager for the Eastern States, Fred Bird, along with agency staff and in-state partners, participated in a panel discussion organized by the Massachusetts Legislative Sportsmen’s Caucus supporting the effort to repeal Sunday hunting prohibitions, along with expanding crossbow access and reducing discharge distances for archery.
Highlights:
- Massachusetts Legislative Sportsmen’s Caucus Co-Chair, Sen. Peter Durant, moderated the panel discussion with experts in the sporting and conservation policy community.
- The effort to repeal the Sunday hunting ban, fully include crossbows in the regular archery season, and reduce discharge distances for archery hunting by half, is in full swing.
- Senior Manager for the Eastern States, Fred Bird, participated in the discussion and provided data and evidence to support all three initiatives, which have been long-standing CSF priorities in the state.
In a welcomed and somewhat unexpected turn of events, as of this past March, Massachusetts is now closer to a full repeal of their Sunday hunting ban than ever before in the state’s history. After months of public hearings and over 11,000 comments submitted, with the majority of them in support of the repeal, the Healey-Driscoll Administration announced their intention to introduce legislation to repeal the long-standing and antiquated prohibition, dating back to Massachusetts’s puritanical blue laws and one of the last remaining complete bans on Sunday hunting in the nation.
CSF’s participation in the moderated panel discussion provided the audience with years of expert engagement on the subjects and provided the necessary data and case studies to support the full repeal of the Sunday hunting ban, discharge distance reductions, and full crossbow inclusion. CSF has been at the forefront of these issues and has delivered a track record of success that should alleviate concerns from the general public as well as legislators who need additional information and facts to inform their decision to support.
CSF detailed the immediate accessibility for Massachusetts’s sportsmen and women by doubling the number of weekend days they can go afield. Additionally, CSF illustrated to the panel and audience that set back reductions would potentially open hundreds of thousands of acres of access that further support and contribute to wildlife management. With agency letters in hand from recent victories in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia, CSF was able to show how these states did not observe increases in user conflicts as a result of changes in Sunday hunting policy. Likewise, the letters demonstrate no additional burdens or negative effects to their agencies’ law enforcement missions, nor did the agencies report increases in hunting-related accidents or safety concerns.
While these issues of access and barriers to entry need to be addressed head-on and passed, as Bird stated in the discussion, “It is vital to the future of our traditions, science-based wildlife management, and the funding mechanism that is the American System of Conservation Funding (ASCF), that we introduce serious legislation to ensure our community and the most successful funding model for conservation and wildlife management, have a future.” Bird continued, “The passage of the Governor’s legislation is a powerful tool to create the conditions where people want to go afield because they now have the time and space…”
Creating access and opportunities for Bay Staters will signal to the next generation that they, too, can have a future to pursue their passions in the outdoors and maintain their vital role in the very system the sporting community funds for the benefit of all Massachusetts citizens.