The Traditional Game Checking Station May Soon be a Relic

It was the last day of the antlerless hunting season in West Virginia.  My son and I had enjoyed a successful day, each of us had taken a doe in Preston County.  A friend of mine and his son had also killed does during our daylong hunt in an area between Terra Alta and Kingwood.  

When we left the hunting camp and with our trucks loaded with four big does, there was but one thing left to do–stop at the checking station and register our kills with the DNR.   The nearest checking station was in Kingwood.   We stopped and the shop owner was just about ready to close up for the night.   Turns out however, he was out of checking tags and was unable to accommodate us.   The only other checking station nearby was several miles down the road near Reedsville.    We drove out of our way to that station and were able to get the deer checked in without too much inconvenience.

However, the story illustrates a struggle for the DNR these days.

"Ten or 15 years ago every little mom and pop store around the state had a checking station," DNR Director Frank Jezioro told a legislative committee in Charleston last week. "A hunter shot something two or three miles down the road and there was a place to check it in.  Well, those places have disappeared.   Now you don’t have as many check in stations."

The lack of checking stations in West Virginia for big game is becoming a bigger and bigger problem for the DNR and Jezioro knows something needs to be done.   Other states have experienced similar problems and have turned to technology to handle the job.    It’s something Jezioro and his staff is considering–but it’s a costly undertaking.

"One is a call-in system where something can be done over the phone," said Jezioro. "The other might be an on-line system where people go on a website.   Each one is expensive.  One vendor told us it would be about 75-cents a call, which would be about 250-thousand dollars."

Despite the cost, the West Virginia DNR is trying to afford the system believing it will be more convenient for sportsmen and will make the system more accurate. 

"What we have is a few checking stations scattered around and with gas at three-dollars a gallon people aren’t going to drive 20 to 25 miles to check in a deer,"  Jezioro told lawmakers.

Jezioro favors using technology as a back up, but leaving the old storefront check stations in place for those who still want to tag their kill with the traditional method. 

Jezioro says most other states which have gone to the on-line or telephone checking system have footed the bills with funds from their state’s general revenue budget.   Jezioro says he’s not asking the legislature for the money from general funds, but hopes to find a way to cover the costs out of the DNR operating budget.