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COVID-19

Washington offers online hunter education courses, including field skills

Rylan Stemm, 12, listens as a volunteer hunter's education instructor gives directions during exercises on Saturday Aug 18, 2018. ELI FRANCOVICH/THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW. (Eli Francovich / The Spokesman-Review)

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is offering online hunter education courses, including a virtual field skill course. A student who previously took the main hunter education course online had to complete a live field skill course.

The new virtual fields course was developed by Kalkomey Enterprises after WDFW suspended all in-person hunter education courses in response to the coronavirus.

Between March 16 and Thursday, 1,339 students completed the course, said Michael Whorton, WDFW’s Region 1 hunter education coordinator.

“There was some limited abuse of the new process with some extremely young students completing the course online including a 3-year-old, which we know is not possible,” he said in an email.

Now, students 9 years old and older can complete the course. Younger students will have to wait to attend a live field course.

For more information and to access the course, visit hunter-ed.com/washington/.