Hunters File Harvest Reports, Win Tags

Ten lucky hunters have each won Super Hunt tags for 2007 deer, elk, and pronghorn antelope hunts. The winners were drawn at random from among the 110,000 hunters who filed their mandatory harvest reports before February 1 as an incentive to file reports promptly. The winners are allowed to choose deer, elk or pronghorn. The permit allows them to hunt during any open season in the state for that species. Other hunt rules still apply. In 2006, 159,000 hunters bought 240,000 tags for deer, elk, and pronghorn. Hunters are requires to report on each of these tags by 10 days after harvesting, or 10 days after the close of the season. Filing reports by early January each year allows Fish and Game to analyze the results sooner and make the results available for biologists in determining necessary changes to hunting seasons for the coming fall. This year, Fish and Game will be working on additional incentives to encourage hunters to use the Internet to promptly file their harvest reports - the Internet is faster, less expensive for Fish and Game to process and is more accurate. It requires hunters to fill in all the relevant sections of their report, and is the only method which allows hunters to receive a confirmation that their report has been filed. Reports filed on the Internet have increased from 22 percent to 45 percent in the past four years.