Pennsylvania hunters delayed by state’s faltering online license system
Salena Zito
INDIANOLA, Pennsylvania — At 8 a.m. this morning, a longtime Western Pennsylvania hunter had signed in to use the new online system for antlerless dear hunting licenses and was placed in a cyber-queue. He said he was stunned to find out he was number 49,000 and was told once his number came up he would receive an email, and then would have only 10 minutes to fill out the form or lose his place in line.
“Which meant I had to stand by my computer or phone and keep checking to see if the email came up, that also meant I had to monitor to see if it turned up in my spam file as well. You know, some of us have to work for a living and I work with my hands, not by a computer,” the 42-year-old hunter said while explaining he has been hunting since he was a child, a tradition he passed on to his son.
“Just how exactly am I supposed to work and wait for an email?” he asked. “This isn’t just a hobby; this is how I feed my family.”
So there he was, along with hundreds of other hunters standing in line at the local Walmart, not to mention the 49,000-person queue in cyberspace. It was 11:45 a.m. and the cashier said only one person’s application had gone through.
“I warned them last week this would happen,” she said.
Luckily, all of the men and women in line had a bit of a sense of humor about the whole situation, laughing about how this is what happens when government gets involved with things. After a few hours, several Walmart employees brought over folding chairs from the sports department for some of those in line, as the system crashed over and over again.
A visit to four different Western Pennsylvania Walmarts told the same story: long lines, apologetic clerks, frustration with government, but also a very interesting bonding between the hunters that could have gone south had they been any other group of people.
State Sen. Devlin Robinson, who adamantly opposed the new system signed into law by then-governor Tom Wolf late last year, said if ever there were nice people in this state, it is the hunting community.
“At a time where hunters have been diminishing, we are putting more restrictions on them and making it harder for a new generation of hunters to enjoy the great outdoors, the ability to feed themselves and carry on traditions with the next generation,” he said.
Robinson said the legislation was brought forward by state Sen. Dan Laughlin, an Erie Republican. “Senate Bill 431 was supposed to make it easier for hunters to obtain antlerless deer hunting licenses,” he explained.
There were hundreds of thousands of hunters who would have disagreed with that on Monday.
Robinson, who was on the Fish and Game Commission in the last session, said the legislation removed county treasurers — who were the sole providers of antlerless tags — who had complained the process was bogging their offices down and their offices weren’t receiving enough compensation for their efforts.
“We heard from numerous county treasurers throughout the Commonwealth that they were spending too much time filling out the paperwork for the licenses for the amount of money that they were getting in return,” Robinson said.
“And instead of going back and streamlining the paperwork, the state’s solution was to put everything online, obviously causing more confusion,” Robison explained, adding his phone began lighting up early this morning from constituents frazzled by the problems.
Robinson said it was passed by the majority. “It went through the Fish and Game Commission, and then it went for full Senate consideration and then it went over to the House, and it was passed and signed into law by the governor last year on Governor Wolf’s way out.”
Robinson said he thinks the legislature should have taken a look at the existing process and streamlined it.
“I think that older Pennsylvanians who are going to pass on these traditions to the newer generation aren’t exactly ready to fill out that paperwork online,” he said. “And then we have the Amish population [which eschews technology], as well, that aren’t going to be able to utilize that system.”
By noon, Pennsylvania Game Commission spokesperson Taylor Lau called and told me because of the high volume of sales this morning, the hunting license system experienced widespread slowness and intermittent errors, both online and in stores: “The Pennsylvania Game Commission apologizes for the issues this has caused for our hunters. We are diligently working with our online vendor to identify and resolve issues to continue license sales.”
Robinson said it is disappointing that the same people are always affected by governments ineptitude:
“Most of the hunters in this state are working class, or older, or small business people. Hunting is not just tradition for them, it is how you feed your family. It is a shame that government didn’t calculate the impact this would have on their ability to both do their jobs and apply for a license.”
The Pennsylvania Game Commission reported in March that hunters killed an estimated 422,960 white-tailed deer during the 2022-23 seasons that ended in January, with a buck harvest at 164,190 and the antlerless harvest at 258,770, up 12% from the year before.
“If I remember correctly, deer hunting is the most popular hunting activity on state land,” said Robinson. “The forests are healthier when the deep population is managed, and lots of people are happier and healthier when venison is in the freezer to feed their family for a year.”
While everyone in line called the entire day and process a disaster, the online comments on Twitter were a little more cheeky. And at each store, a sense of community had formed among the hunters in line.
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“I just met a guy who has a camp down the road from mine, we plan on meeting up on opening day,” said one man wearing a Sportsman’s Paradise T-shirt.
“Well, that is, if we ever get our licenses.”