By Jessica Domel
Multimedia Reporter

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) may expand its digital tagging pilot program to allow more hunters and anglers to digitally tag mule and white-tailed deer, turkey and red drum they harvest.

“Based on the popularity of these digital license offerings in the pilot year, based on feedback from customers and the ability of our systems to support this option, staff would like to propose creation of digital offerings for four license types,” Chris Cerny, TPWD’s business analyst for the wildlife division, told the Parks and Wildlife Commission.

Currently, those with a resident super combo, senior super combo or lifetime super combo can enroll in the program.

If the program is expanded next season, those with a youth hunting license, exempt red drum angler tag, lifetime hunting tag and lifetime fishing tag will be able to signup for the voluntary digital tagging program.

“For the youth hunting license, staff did receive feedback from a number of customers who had gone out to purchase their digital super combo for themselves and their spouse, and then went on to purchase the license for their children only to find there was no digital option for the youth license,” Cerny said. “So, they wound up having to carry a paper license even though the family wanted to go fully digital.”

The department’s reasoning behind allowing those with an exempt angler red drum tag to enter the program is similar.

“There are customers who otherwise don’t need to carry a fishing license who would still have to go purchase a red drum tag to harvest that oversized bull red,” Cerny said. “We want to make sure they can go fully digital if they would like.”

The lifetime tag licenses could be added to the program so all lifetime license types are eligible.

Currently, Texas hunting and fishing license holders have the option to carry a digital copy of their license, as a photo on their phone or through an app, to provide proof of license if stopped by law enforcement.

The digital tagging program requires enrolled license holders to confirm their harvest via My Texas Hunt Harvest immediately after killing a deer or turkey or catching a red drum.

“If data services are available when completing that report, a confirmation number is provided, and that is all that has to be added to the document,” Cerny said.

Hunters can write the confirmation number on a sheet of paper, duct tape or another medium and attach it to their deer or turkey.

Anglers who catch an oversized red drum are not required to attach the confirmation number to the fish.

If data service is not available, the hunter can simply write their name, customer number, the date and time on a tag on the deer or turkey.

“When they return to data service, and they receive the confirmation number, that gets added to the document,” Cerny said.

As of March, more than 78,000 digital licenses have been sold.

Those sales represent 13.6% of all of those license types sold to-date this season.

The bulk of enrolled license holders have a regular super combo.

If the additional license types become eligible for digital tagging, Cerny said that would add about 18,000 hunters and anglers to the program, if those license holders enroll at a rate of 13.6%.

Cerny said the program can handle the additions.

An added benefit of allowing hunters and anglers to digitally tag their harvests is additional harvest information for the department’s biologists.

“Comparing what we received for all of the ’21 and ’22 season to what we’ve received thus far for the ’22-23 season, knowing that spring turkey is just getting underway, you can see a substantial increase in reporting-nearly four-fold,” Cerny said. “In all of ’21-22, we received fewer than 8,000 harvest reports for those species. At the end of deer season, we had received better than 28,000 reports.”

TPWD is expected to publish the proposal in the Texas Register. It will then accept public comment before the Parks and Wildlife Commission considers adding the license types to the digital tagging program.

License holders with allowed types are not required to digitally tag their deer and turkey. Enrollment is voluntary.

If the four additional license types are able to enroll in the digital program, 30 or so licenses would still not be eligible for digital tagging.

“We do want to continue expanding, but we want to go in a controlled fashion to ensure success of the rollout for our customers,” Cerny said.

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