New hunting license sales system resumes after glitches
Hunting licenses were elusive on the morning of opening day of the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s new hunting license sales system Monday, June 26.
The system — which, for the first time, allows hunters to buy general hunting licenses and add-on licenses such as doe licenses at the same time — operated at a slow pace when it opened at 8 a.m. before crashing around 9:15 a.m.
After a two-hour delay, the system was up and running again.
Hunters hoping to secure doe licenses for their favorite wildlife management units lined up and waited outside the Butler County Government Center before it opened at 8:30 a.m. to buy licenses at the treasurer’s office.
The line began forming at 7:45 a.m. in the sporting goods department at Walmart at Butler Crossing in Butler Township.
Online sales through huntfish.pa.gov began at 8 a.m.
Sales at the treasurer’s office, retail shops and online were impacted by the morning glitches.
“This is a game commission nightmare,” said Ralph Stoltenberg, of Butler, while he was waiting in line at Walmart. “We’ve been here since 7:45 (a.m.).”
He said he prefers the simplicity of the old system in which hunters applied for doe licenses through the mail after buying their general hunting licenses.
“I like the mail-in system. You fill out the pink envelope and send it, and that’s it,” Stoltenberg said.
The system crashed while he was in line, but it eventually started working again.
Stoltenberg said he expected problems with the new system because all sales agents, including Walmart stores, would have to access the system simultaneously. He said a lot of people left the store after waiting for some time. At one point, the line of people stretched from the sporting goods department into the adjoining home improvements department.
He said he was in line to buy a general license and a doe license for management unit 2G, where he has a hunting camp, as early as possible because the doe tags tend to sell quickly.
“They don’t allocate many, so they go fast,” Stoltenberg said
The game commission increased the doe license allocations for most units before licenses went on sale. Some believe the allotments were increased as a buffer against problems with the new sales system.
When the sales system went offline in the treasurer’s office, Treasurer Diane Marburger said she broke the news to those who were waiting in line. She then asked them to tell her staff which licenses they wanted and leave the payment. When their licenses were ready, staff would call them or send the licenses by mail, she said. The treasurer’s office covered the postage costs, she added.
She said she was in contact with other county treasurers who used the same approach in their counties.
“There’s a lot of communication among all the treasurers across the state,” Marburger said.
The new sales system worked early, but faltered, she said.
“It lasted from 8 o’clock until about 9:15 (a.m.) when it couldn’t handle all the hunters waiting online. We were in business for all of an hour and 15 minutes,” Marburger said. “The stress on this new system hit an early breaking point. The number in the queue kept going up and up, and the system crashed.”
People waiting in line would leave to add quarters to parking meters and return, she said.
“The doors opened at 8:30 (a.m.) People were waiting before we opened,” she said.
The game commission acknowledged the issues in the morning before the system resumed operation.
“Due to the high volume of sales this morning, Pennsylvania’s hunting license system experienced widespread slowness and intermittent errors, both online and in-stores,” said Travis Lau, game commission spokesman, in an email. “The Pennsylvania Game Commission apologizes for the issues this has caused for our hunters.
“We are diligently working with our online vendor to identify and resolve issues to continue license sales.”
