Is the late reporting fee merely a scam to raise revenue?

[wags]

https://wdfw.wa.gov/hunting/management/game-harvest

I stand corrected. That being said, it would be interesting to know how they interpret the data and then implement changes.
For at least the last 50 years, western Washington general deer season has been from the second Saturday of October, to October 31.
It just amazes me that conditions -deer population, hunting pressure, etc.- hasn't changed enough one way or another in the past 50 years that would cause the general season dates to change.   

[Chesapeake]

https://wdfw.wa.gov/hunting/management/game-harvest

Don’t show them that. We don’t need more folks actually researching the units the choose to hunt or apply for.

[Okanagan]

If it wasn't a scam they would give you a few days after the season closes to report. Reports are due on the last day of cougar season.
At least the Trappers report of catch isn't due until 20 days after the close of season.

^^This^^

Closing the report window on the day the season closes is nuts.  It is user unfriendly and says volumes about the game department and their reporting gamesmanship. 

Last year I hunted the last day of cougar season, drove an hour or more after dark and came home tired, planning to report the next day.  Nope.  Report window all shut down.  If they really want accurate harvest info rather than extrapolations from random phone calls, what is the rationale for shutting off reporting with zero time after the season to report?

It's probably the usual imcompetence of some bureaucrat in an office who knows nothing of actual hunting conditions, rather than a deliberate underhanded way to add $10 to the price of a hunting or fishing license. 

[Elkaholic daWg]

It looks to me like it is a way to raise the price of a license $10 on a significant percentage of users without raising the official price.  Call it what you want.  The section bobcat pasted in calls it an adminstrative fee  buried in a pile of bureaucratic justification.   

I wish we could know how many hunters/fishermen reported on time, how many failed to report on time, and how many tried to report but were unable to.  I have been able to report online some years and not able to two years, due to site failure.  Usually I mail the cards.

 

Well we do live in Jaydolph's Washington so......

[Ridgeratt]

Washington is all about the money. And we all line up for a big "ol" glass of the Narrative.

https://www.lmtribune.com/northwest/washington-driver-s-licenses-are-the-most-expensive-in-the-u-s/article_f3737159-7e9c-501a-bfc4-f3a82a36b7bd.html

Not sure if these funds have improved anything but Jay's lifestyle.

10 bucks here and 10 bucks there. Didn't mean to push the thread sideways but it just shows that they don't have a add-on and people just line up to pay.

[M_ray]

i dont think you can call it a scam, because you know going into buying your license that this is the case.
i think you can call it BS.
I think it would make more sense as an incentive if they gave you a 10$ discount the following year license purchase.

It’s a scam when they don’t want the info they just want your money. One year I was reporting and the WDFW web site crashed, their fault but my fault for not going back in and it slipped my mind. I missed the cut off by a couple days and called to at least offer my report cause of coarse they need the info right? Nope they told me it’s not needed and you’ll have to pay the money if you want a tag next year. I told the associate on the phone so what good is the info then if you don’t need it other than you just want us to forget so you can charge us? She didn’t have an answer and told me that’s what the bio’s told them to say.

 It reminds me of the 5$ they add to your tabs and hope you forget to subtract it, nothing but extortion and a money grab.

playing devils advocate here, but you admitted you missed the deadline.
When i give people a deadline at work and they're late, it then creates more work for ME to incorporate their data into the models im running.
so the added benefit of adding your data vs the re work necessary to input your data late, may not be worth it to them...
i'd argue the data is used for something...meaningful decisions being made? doubtful, but it's used for some sort of metric.

😂 what’s hilarious with your statement is that you actually think they are working on the data and that they are finished with it when the cut off for reporting ends? News for you the other parts of my conversation with the associate was that the Bio’s hadn’t even started their reports yet which further angered me. She said they have to have a cut off at some point and the bios asked for the end of January. I asked what they did with the people that didn’t report and she said they do an average and mathematically add the  number to match lisc sales. You might have missed the part where their site crashed a couple nights before the reporting deadline? It conveniently does this every year for the last couple nights and it also goes down for maintenance. But I’m sure that’s all legitimately just coincidence right? 😆