DNR officer sheds light on upcoming changes to Minnesota’s licensing and labeling system – Grand Forks Herald

Everything will be business as usual this fall, but starting in 2025, Minnesota deer hunters will face some changes in the way they tag the deer they shoot.

The same goes for people with turkey, elk, bear, prairie chicken or sturgeon tags.

The Minnesota Legislature passed legislation during the 2024 session that allows the Department of Natural Resources to implement a new licensing and permitting system for mobile and internet devices. Under the system, from 2025, hunters and anglers will be able to register their harvests without having to physically mark the animal. As the Duluth News Tribune reported in May at the end of the legislative session, the DNR is rolling out a free smartphone app that will “enable hunters, fishermen, skiers, snowmobilers and other license holders” to store their licenses on their phones or show photos of their license as evidence.

The new system is scheduled to go into effect in March 2025, marking the beginning of a new licensing year in Minnesota.

Earlier this week, I had a question about another licensing issue, so I called Jeremy Woinarowicz, a longtime DNR conservation specialist who works at Thief River Falls West Station in northwestern Minnesota.

The conversation was also an opportunity to learn more about the new licensing and tagging system, as it wasn’t entirely clear to me how it would work.

The ability to purchase licenses online is, of course, nothing new, but a big change in the new system will be the smartphone application. As Woinarowicz explained, paper tags will disappear unless people physically print them on their personal printers.

Thanks to the new system, hunters and anglers using the application will be able to store licenses on their phone or other electronic device. When they harvest a deer (or turkey, bear, elk, prairie chicken or sturgeon), instead of cutting a paper tag and physically placing it on the animal, hunters or sturgeon anglers open the app and “e-nick” the tag to show it has been used.

“Even if you don’t have cell reception, the app will save (e-notch),” Woinarowicz said. “And if you see someone dressed like me (a DNR maintenance worker), I can look on the app and take a picture of the QR code and it will tell me when you nicked your tag to show that it has been nicked at the site of the kill.

“Once you make the incision and use the tag, it is automatically registered so you don’t have to do anything else.”

The QR code will also show all purchased licenses, stamps and other permits.

This all sounds great in theory, but there will undoubtedly be bumps in the road. Especially among older hunters and others who may not be as familiar with electronics or still use old-style flip phones.

In that case, hunters will still be able to print a paper tag on their own printer and then cut or sign it to show it has been used, but it will never need to be attached, Woinarowicz said.

“I hope this makes it a little easier,” he said.

Another potential challenge with the new system is dealing with situations where people forget their phone or it dies in a field, making it impossible to show a driver’s license or electronically complete a harvest.

“Now you don’t have a driving license,” said Woinarowicz. “I have no way of checking all the (licenses) you have.”

Hunters and anglers can continue to purchase paper operating permits at motor vehicle registration offices where they register ATVs or snowmobiles because these offices will still be equipped with printers with the special paper that electronic licensing system vendors currently have. Licensing agents will also have the option to print licenses on plain paper.

Now I doubt there will be a learning curve.

“For sure,” said Woinarowicz. “In the first year we will try to provide a lot more education than enforcement, but theoretically it is better for us because we will be able to make sure that the person has cut their badge and it records immediately after the cut.”

Everything will be business as usual until next March, but in the meantime, hunters and anglers in Minnesota would do well to become familiar with the new system and how it works.

More information about the licensing system, which goes into effect in 2025, can be found on the DNR website at dnr.state.mn.us/rlp/els.html.