An archaic law banning Bay State hunters from the woods on Sundays would be overturned by any of several bills under consideration by the Legislature, and some residents say lawmakers need to act to protect their communities from being overrun by deer.

Massachusetts is one of just two states in the nation to still enforce a 19th century law prohibiting Sunday hunting. Bills heard by the Joint Committee on Environment and Natural Resources on Wednesday would lift that ban entirely or modify it to allow archery hunting on Sundays.

“In the community where I live…we have a massive deer population problem,” Dartmouth resident Alex Goodman told the committee.

In Dartmouth, Goodman said, there are 56 deer per square mile. A sustainable population would be closer to a dozen per square mile, he said.

“This problem is leading to huge problems with over-browsing in our native forests. It’s also leading to near-daily vehicle collisions on our roadways. It’s also leading to the spread of tick-borne illnesses. The only tool that we have to appropriately manage this deer population is recreational hunting,” Goodman said.

Under current state law, the Commonwealth’s sportsmen are limited to hunting only six days a week. Massachusetts and Maine are the only states remaining with a Sunday hunting ban, after Pennsylvania changed their rules in 2020.

It’s not just drivers that are struggling with the deer population. The state’s farmers are losing millions annually because of deer that cannot be kept away from crops without costly interventions.

“I’m asking from you today is to recognize the natural disaster that’s putting our farmers out of business. There are no fundraisers, there’s no emergency money from the Legislature to help our farmers. This is a silent environmental crisis and our farmers are suffering,” Southeastern Massachusetts Agricultural Partnership executive director Susan Murray said.

According to Topsfield resident Antoinette Pizzinato-Hatfield, considering the ratio of hunters to non-hunters using the state’s forests, six days to harvest deer in any given week are more than enough.

“Ninety-nine percent of Massachusetts residents do not hunt. Only 1 percent do but we, the 99 percent, only receive one day a week,” she said.

Hunting enthusiasts have been attempting to change the Sunday hunting law since at least 1960, to no avail.