People wait in line at Walmart to buy hunting licenses on Monday, June 26, 2023. Steve Ferris/Butler Eagle

In Tuesday’s edition, staff reported hunting licenses were elusive on the morning of opening day of the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s new hunting license sales system June 26.

One could argue the licenses were more elusive than the deer can be on opening day of hunting season.

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.

Ralph Stoltenberg, of Butler, said he was waiting in line at Walmart at 7:45 a.m.

Treasurer Diane Marburger said the system “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.

“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.”

When the sales system went offline in the treasurer’s office, 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.

For those in line and those selling the licenses behind the counter, the way technology behaved was out of their control.

We commend everyone in the treasurer’s office and beyond for doing everything they could to get licenses to those who wanted them as quickly as they were able. Everyone involved seemed to be able to roll with the punches — which we applaud across the board.

Some in the newsroom are from the generation that much prefers doing things online; others would rather use the simplicity of the mail.

Both parties agree: this change was bound to come, but people really shouldn’t need to use a vacation day to score a license in their favorite Wildlife Management Unit.

We hope to see further thought go into the process for next time.

— CM