Whether you’ve mistakenly left your tag back at camp and don’t have it readily available after a successful hunt or if you’ve chosen to purposely not tag your animal in hopes of getting multiple animals on one tag hoping to not get caught, failure to validate (aka failure to tag) can come with major penalties.

If you’ve found yourself having had a successful hunt, you must comply with the regulations regarding the proper tagging, transportation and shipment of the carcass. Immediately after locating your animal, the appropriate tag must be validated (both the month and day) and securely attached to the animal. This validated tag must then remain attached to the carcass of the animal until the animal is reaches the place of final storage and processed (whether this is your local game cooler or your back yard).

According to the 2016 Oregon Fish & Wildlife regulations:

No person shall have in possession any game mammal tag from which all or part of any date has been removed or mutilated except when the tag is legally validated and attached to a game mammal.
When a game mammal or part thereof is transferred to the possession of another person, including a meat processor or taxidermist, a written record describing the game mammal or part being transferred and name and address of the person whose tag was originally attached to the carcass and the number of that tag shall accompany such transfer and shall remain with such game mammal or part so long as the same is preserved (see Instructions for a Wildlife Transfer Record). The original tag should remain with the portion of the animal retained by the hunter.

Whether you’ve intentionally or unintentionally failed to tag an animal and have been charged with failure to validate, contact our office to schedule an initial consultation today.