Why It Matters: State fish and wildlife agencies throughout our country are tasked with the difficult job of balancing recreation with conservation and wildlife management. Extra work goes into special hunts and the raffle permit systems. The carefully planned 2024-2025 special hunt season in Washington State was thrown into chaos after a software error was discovered by the third-party administrator. That error resulted in the misallocation of hundreds of deer and elk permits leaving WDFW with difficult decisions around fairness to hunt applicants and herd conservation.
Highlights:
- A third-party software program was found to contain a coding error that incorrectly allocated special draw permits in Washington State.
- WDFW was forced to manually correct the errors in the draw results that incorrectly selected 738 individuals for special permits. WDFW attempted to ensure that those individuals still had hunting access, where biologically available.
On June 12, 2024, the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) conducted their annual special hunt permit drawings through a third-party administrator and announced those results to the applicants. Unfortunately, on June 27, 2024, the third-party vendor tasked with creating the raffle software notified WDFW of an issue with the original draw results. As hunters were busy making plans and scouting hunt areas tied to their special permits WDFW was faced with a conundrum – how to correct the drawing error in a way that maintained the integrity of the special permit system without negatively impacting herd populations and management targets.
It was discovered that a coding error in the special draw software program led to the improper allocation of permits through the ranked list. After discussion and consideration WDFW went through the list to manually award deer and elk special hunt permits to the individuals who should have been given priority in the original drawing. Unfortunately, this decision meant that 738 hunters had been incorrectly selected and assigned tags they had not qualified for. According to their website WDFW, “worked hard to secure hunting opportunities for these [impacted] individuals by increasing the number of permits, where biologically feasible.”
While this software error may be unique, the root conversation is not. Each day, our state fish and wildlife agencies are tasked with the delicate balance of maximizing recreational opportunities that are biologically feasible and supportive of long-term conservation goals. Representatives from the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF) discussed the raffle results with WDFW staff and helped to ensure that our partners in Washington had access to all the information they needed.
