With the 2002 license year, Montana’s hunting and fishing licenses will have a new look and be dispensed in a new way by FWP’s new Automated Licensing System (ALS).
For the past 100 years, Montana’s license agents have been writing or typing information on licenses, storing copies and then shipping the carbon copies and fees to FWP in Helena.
New electronic technology will streamline the system and improve the services FWP and its license providers offer hunters, anglers and state parks visitors. ALS will connect all license providers to FWP via a communication web that will deliver information back and forth between a central database and the license providers’ on-site computers.
"ALS will ultimately make everything faster and more efficient," said Jeff Hagener, FWP director. "Because we are implementing a new and relatively complex system, for some the first ALS license purchase may be a bit more methodical than in the past, but most purchases after that should be made more routine. The hardest thing to get used to will likely be the look and feel of the new licenses."
The new-look licenses will come in two ways. Conservation, and all other licenses that don’t require hunters to cut out a harvest date and attach the license to an animal, will be listed on a single sheet of paper similar to, but more durable than, a common cash register receipt. So, your fishing license and upland game bird license, for instance, will both be listed on a single sheet of paper.
All hunting licenses that must be used to legally tag a harvested animal -- the "tags" for animals like elk, deer and black bear -- will be provided on a separate sheet and enclosed in a pouch supplied by the license provider.
"The first thing a license provider will ask for is your name and birth date, or your 2001 Conservation License," Hagener said. "ALS will then, for most individuals, quickly retrieve identifying information from FWP’s current database and automatically display it on a computer screen."
If you didn’t purchase a Conservation License in 2001, the license provider will need to know the same basic vital information required in past years to legally purchase a Montana hunting or fishing license.
Once you acquire a license through ALS, the system will assign you a lifetime ALS number. The lifetime number eliminates the need for an annual Conservation License number. Providers will simply request a person’s ALS number, date of birth and driver’s license or other form of identification for all future license purchases.
In addition to better and faster customer service, ALS has several spin-off benefits. ALS’s comprehensive database will allow FWP more effective communication with license providers and, through them, with hunters, anglers and other recreators. For instance FWP will be able to provide information immediately on things such as stream closures or fishing regulation changes due to drought or some other unforeseen emergency. FWP will also have the ability to directly contact hunters with special elk permits in a specific location to alert them about everything from specific landowner concerns, to grizzly bear activity, to unexpected road closures.
Up-to-date, complete and readily available license information will help game wardens detect illegal activities, such as multiple purchases of licenses, purchases of licenses by individuals with revoked privileges, and purchases of resident licenses by nonresidents. "These kinds of investigations could take weeks in the past, but with ALS verification can be possible within 24 hours," Hagener said.
With ALS, license buyers will no longer be required to keep records of Hunter and Bowhunter Education or disability documentation to acquire Montana licenses that require a certification prerequisite. Once the certification information is entered, ALS will permanently maintain it.
Best of all, ALS allows all license providers to sell all license types -- from hunting and fishing licenses to State Lands user permits and State Parks Passports. And, should you lose the licenses you purchased in Billings, you can replace them all at any one of the nearly 400 license providers scattered across the state.
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