Relating to the allocation of nonresident deer hunting licenses

This bill relates to nonresident deer hunting licenses issued by the natural resource commission (NRC). Currently, NRC authorizes the issuance of up to 6,000 antlered or any sex deer hunting licenses to nonresidents. Licenses are awarded based on the results of drawing from applicant pools. The first nonresident antlered or any sex deer hunting license drawing is made from the pool of applicants with the most preference points and continues to pools of applicants with successively fewer preference points until all the available licenses have been issued. The bill retains this method of license distribution, but only until percent of the available nonresident antlered or any sex deer hunting licenses have been issued. The bill requires the remaining percent of the nonresident antlered or any sex deer hunting licenses to be distributed through a random drawing of all the applications without considering the preference points of the applicant. Regardless of the drawing method, once a nonresident applicant receives a license, all of the applicant’s preference points are removed.