On July 10th, the Department of Fish and Wildlife announced that a complication occurred in assigning special draws results, as well as corrective steps they are taking to address it. We encourage hunters that applied for a special draw, whether you believe you were selected or not selected, to review the Department’s announcement here.

As we reviewed the announcement, we were struck by two simultaneous feelings. The first was that glimmer of hope that every hunter has while waiting on draw results. Did this error work in our favor? Did we get a coveted tag? Even a second choice or third choice would be better than nothing at all. Of course, there is also the alternative- could we lose our tag that took years to draw? Would our first choice tag be relegated to a less desirable alternative? No doubt these same thoughts were on the minds of thousands of other hunters as word spread. There will be joys and frustrations felt across Washington’s hunting community in the weeks to come.

Of course, the disappointed within the hunting community will voice their feelings, loudly and vehemently. They will assign blame and levy accusations at the Department for this mistake. But we encourage those who have been affected to step back and think carefully about the process that got us here and how we move forward constructively.

Washington is not the first state to experience issues with their special hunt draws, and will likely not be the last. This is a specialized process that only a few dozen people throughout the country are intimately experienced in, with only a handful of software vendors to execute the task on a given year.  It only takes one simple, unnoticeable coding error to make a mess for everyone. 

Mistakes do happen- what matters most is how we respond to them. In the case of the Department, they have embraced transparency and are attempting a solution that does the most good for the most people. Where biologically feasible, they will accommodate granting tags to individuals that were incorrectly told they had won a special draw. Washington BHA respects Department leadership, program managers, and scientists in their primary responsibility to protect healthy ecosystems to preserve future opportunity in the rare circumstance that they cannot honor those tags.

At the end of the day, the Department is a government bureaucracy, serving millions of state residents, conserving wildlife resources, and providing opportunities for hundreds of thousands of hunters and anglers. It is no simple task, and yet, when they do this work well it is often thankless. It is also the work that is constantly undermined by individuals who aren’t interested in perpetuating our privileges to hunt and fish in this state. A lost tag or less ideal special draw is a personal frustration, but the undermining of the Department and its mandate are an existential threat. If we spent half the energy championing the department as an ally that many spend criticizing it, the fight to preserve our outdoor heritage in this state would be over already.

Hunters are adept at holding conflicting emotions and thoughts. Like loving a species but harvesting an animal. Or being joyful yet a little sad at the end of a successful or unsuccessful hunt. This same complexity can and should apply as it relates to the WDFW special hunt announcement. It’s okay to be frustrated and disappointed in a result, but also be thankful if you still get an opportunity this year. It’s okay to be upset about how the draw process was executed, but also acknowledge that the Department is probably even more upset than you are. Dwelling on it won’t change the result, anymore than screaming into the void can call back a bad shot. Instead, we must accept reality, learn from the experience, and move on to the next opportunity.

After all, no matter the special draw results, hunting season is just around the corner and that’s worth being excited about.