The days of sportsmen and women getting a printed hunting digest ended in 2017-18 and may be gone for good.
Bob Frye/Everybody Adventures
It was a move meant to save money, and that it did.
But it stirred passions, too.
Like seemingly every change to the rules regarding hunting in Pennsylvania, the decision by the Game Commission not to give license buyers a printed copy of the digest — unless they paid extra for it – had people fired up.
“This was either the worst idea we’ve ever done and was going to result in lawlessness or it was the best idea we’ve ever done and it was about time we looked at a way to cut costs,” said Steve Smith, director of the agency’s bureau of information and education. “The perception was on those extremes, for the most part.”
Benefits
Going away from offering everyone a printed digest did have a couple of benefits, though, Smith said.
For one thing, it saved the commission about $188,000, said executive director Bryan Burhans.
For another – and this was unexpected – it allowed the commission to update its rules in real time, Smith said. Mid-season, new rules were adopted allowing hunters to use motorized decoys for waterfowl and doves, heated scent dispensers and ozone-style scent control devices.
Printed digests, which were finalized months earlier, couldn’t account for that, Smith said. But the commission was able to update the digital version as soon as the rules went into effect.
Meanwhile, one worry some commission had turned out – so it seems, anyway – to be a non-issue.
Going into the 2017-18 hunting year, some wondered if game wardens would have a harder time prosecuting cases of people breaking the rules. The concern was that violators would say they didn’t know the rules because they didn’t get a digest.
If anyone has made that argument, they haven’t done so successfully.
“As of today, we can say that we haven’t heard of any instances in which it was a negative impact to our officers bringing charges against an individual,” Smith said.
The bad
One problem did crop up, though.
In place of a printed digest, hunters were to get a pamphlet listing basic information, like seasons and bag limits, hunting hours and florescent orange requirements, when they bought a license. Not all did.
Vendors had the pamphlets, Smith said, but some didn’t hand them out for whatever reason.
The commission mailed flyers to hunters who complained, however.
Where to go from here is the question.
The future
Smith called this first year of going without printed digests a “trial.” Many if not most states operate that way, he noted.
There was still some demand for printed books, he said. Roughly 65,000 hunters – 7 percent of license buyers — paid $6 to get one.
Commissioners must decide if it’s worth going back to providing free printed books for everyone, Smith said.
Opinions are split.
Commissioner Michael Mitrick of York County said the printed digest has value.
“My take on the digest is this is one way the Pennsylvania Game Commission can get what we want to our hunters as far as information,” Mitrick said. “This is our way to communicate. I don’t think many people are going to go to the website just to read about the Game Commission.”
Commissioner Brian Hoover of Chester County disagreed. He carries the digital version of the digest on his cell phone and thinks many hunters are OK with doing the same.
“I would be on the side of staying the course and try to get more information out about how to get information,” he said.
The commission is looking at new ways communicate, said executive director Bryan Burhans. A new smart phone app that offering access to the digest is in the works, for example.
That may be another piece of the long-term answer, Smith said.
“Twenty years ago, it was the digest or nothing. That’s certainly not the case now,” Smith said.
