Fremont County resident and hunter safety instructor Joan Eisemann wants Wyoming to keep requiring in-person coursework for novice hunters as a matter of public safety.
Some of her adult students have never handled a gun before, she said.
“I cannot stress enough the safety factor,” Eisemann told the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission at a Jan. 13 meeting. “Safety first.”
Eisemann was joined by a handful of instructors and hunting advocates who all urged commissioners to keep the in-person requirement in the state agency’s policy. They espoused benefits such as real-life firearm handling, simulations like crossing fences with guns and students getting facetime with wardens to go over Wyoming’s regulations.
Ultimately, however, commissioners opted to modernize and go a direction that the majority of states already have.
“We accept hunter safety certifications from other states, and now 33 states have an online-only version,” Game and Fish Commissioner Rusty Bell said.
That puts Wyoming wildlife officials in a bit of a bind. Even if they retained an in-person requirement, state-to-state reciprocity would enable Wyoming’s adult-onset hunters to enroll in online hunter safety courses offered by other states. And about 100 residents did just that in 2025, taking classes offered by Idaho and Nebraska, according to Game and Fish personnel.
“That’s the hard part,” Game and Fish Communications Chief Roy Weber told WyoFile. “So we may as well offer a course that we feel is beneficial and covers the stuff we want to cover here in the state of Wyoming.”
The specifics of Wyoming’s online-only hunter safety curriculum have not been decided. But, likely, the course will not include human instructors presenting remotely, he said.
“More than likely, it would be online modules that you would take with quizzes,” Weber said. “That could change.”
The exclusively online course should be available by early 2027. It will only be available to hunters over 18, which means that about two-thirds of Wyoming hunter safety students won’t be eligible.
Game and Fish Director Angi Bruce spoke in support of the policy change.
“The research shows that … there isn’t a difference between the virtual or in-person [courses] with test scores,” Bruce told commissioners.
But some longtime hunter safety instructors worry that important lessons will be lost in the online-only format. Alan Brumsted was among those to testify against the policy change, and the Lander resident said he knows from experience that if a workaround is available to students, they’ll take it.
“I guess I see the worst in people, because I was a teacher,” Brumsted told WyoFile. “How can a student get around what they have to do? What’s a shortcut?”
Brumsted’s concern is that online test-takers will mindlessly scroll through required tutorials and then pass a test easily. Many of the questions have intuitive answers, he said.
“I worry about the integrity of the test,” Brumsted said. “And I worry about the fact that there’s just no accountability. There’s no in-person time for somebody to ask a question.”
The Game and Fish Commission OK’d the new online-only option for hunter safety certificates in a 4-2 vote, with Commissioners Ken Roberts and John Masterson opposed.
“I listen to the people who teach hunter education,” Masterson said, “and I cannot help but give them a great deal of deference.”
Roberts shared a similar rationale: “If the educators are saying we need to have [in-person courses] to make it a better program,” he said, “to me, we need to have it to make it a better program.”
State wildlife management agencies have been requiring hunter safety certificates as a prerequisite for holding hunting licenses since the 1950s. The requirements were spurred by concerns over hunting-related injuries and fatalities.
Correction: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Joan Eisemann’s first name.
Isabel: Nice post! Thank you! The only idea the gun humpers embrace warmly to their bosoms is the notion that they need all this weaponry in case they have to overthrow a tyrant.
When an actual tyrant arrives on the scene, however, the gun humpers are nowhere to be found, and their cries of rage are reduced to . . . (crickets). In fact it’s just the opposite. They openly support the tyrant.
I am drawing a big distinction here between gun humpers and responsible gun owners.
Why not? We sell guns to the blind in this country.
WGFD shouldn’t be looking at test scores. They should be looking at statistics of yearly hunting accidents that would have been avoided with a in person versus online class. An online course is going through the motions, training and instruction is not retained by a computer. With modern advances in AI, chat gpt and other online forums. Those taking the online course will not be taking the course as seriously as those who have to make time and go to an inperson class. Look at statistics of how much faster those have completed online over the years. WGFD needs to conduct more research before kicking off an online course.
All the gun owners that are concerned should band together and offer their time to be teachers, make a coalition and approach G&F and tell them you care and offer your time. Maybe your local search and rescue folks can help you or you can become an arm of their organizations. When there is a change you want somebody to make sometimes you have to be that sombody.
I can walk into the grocery store in Pinedale and buy an assault weapon with no safety training. So why isn’t anyone concerned about that? Anyone that is concerned about hunter safety needs to take that concern to all guns statewide otherwise your opinions are totally hollow. Firearm related injuries are now the number one cause of death for children in America, Wyoming has some of the weakest gun safety laws in America, how about looking into those safety issues too?
That would make too much sense. You raise a very good point. Anyone upset about this online only hunters education who is ok with firearms regulation is not being rational.
I’ll argue the other side of this issue. I remember well taking the class with my father in 1977 – taught by Bill Stewart who recently passed. Great class, always appreciated the class and what it taught me.
I tried to do the same thing with my two nephews and daughter. Because of a shortage of classes and demand we ended up having to do the online class with the half day in person follow-up and test. Not enough instructors or classes available. There was probably 35 kids in the class with my daughter – and we did the class with two friends of hers and their father.
I get the marginal impact of on line classes but until we have enough classes and qualified instructors what is G&F supposed to do?
This is very disappointing news. I took hunter safety with my father when I was a teenager. I had already been hunting squirrels and doves before that but my Dad said it would be a good thing. It was. We spent several nights together in the class and earned our hunter safety certificates even though both of us were not required to do so. My son took the class as well as both his daughters. I would venture to guess that most parents attend with their children to make it a fun time out and to refresh old skills.
I have seen some pretty sloppy gun handling with guys who were not required to take the class. One of the guys in our hunting camp blew a hole in his transmission while unloading his gun back at the truck. Another arrived back at the motel and as he got out of the truck with his two buddies his gun discharged through the roof. Online might seem better but I am guessing we will see problems in the future due to a lack of hands on training. I hope nobody gets hurt.
I, along with 3 or 4 other G&F certified instructors taught way back when the hunter ed program was first started. There was no internet back then.
Certainly, firearms safety was paramount, but not exclusive (we also did a field test). The course included things like survival, first aid, wildlife management and identification, ethics, etc.
When G&F came out with its online course, as a group, we thought it lacked a “personal touch”. I think it still does.
I realize the technology that is taking over (and ruining) this country, but I have a hard time accepting it.
Thanks to Commissioners Roberts and Masterson for their thoughts and votes.
I work for WDFW in the Hunter Education Division. We did online only during COVID. Kids under 9 had to do a special skills evaluation done by WDFW staff. And the failure rate at that training was about 20% way above the average of 2% for our normal online classes, that includes safe firearm handling. Almost all failures were unsafe muzzle control. The normal online classes include at least 1 hour of handling. We also recognize all states HE cards. I teach both traditional and online courses and the handling portion is most important, because most hunting incidents are from poor firearms handling.
Going thru college I took several on line courses. Tremendous opportunity in my busy schedule. What I missed most was the opportunity for face to face communication and interaction with my fellow students. The reality is that during online classes we often miss questions, perceptions, problems that others may express. There are some things that just need to be done in person and firearms safety is one of them. Do we allow on line instruction for concealed carry permits? Personally, I think that if having hunter education is a requirement for the license to hunt in Wyoming, then the people that need it should be able to carve out enough time to be responsible to take it, in person. I agree with Mr Brumstead. If a person doesn’t have time to take the course in person, the likelihood for cheating increases. What’s to prevent an applicant from having someone else do the course work for them? For heavens sake, at least have them dedicate a couple hours at the finish of the on line course to an in person evaluation by one of our dedicated instructors.
Mr. Peterson, you put that very well. I appreciate your perspective and agree with everything you said. However, there’s one sentence in your comment that people really need to be concerned with. You wrote, “Do we allow online instruction for concealed carry permits?” Technically, after this vote, now Wyoming DOES exactly that.
The way our state statute is written, a person can receive a concealed carry permit by taking ANY certified firearms training course. Until now, that has included both traditional and hybrid Hunter education courses (even though these courses don’t even talk about concealed carry or pistols at all in the curriculum). Guess what the commissioners just voted for? Since the online-only course will be considered a certified firearms training course, under Wyoming statute we have just created an online-only concealed carry course which will give you reciprocity in many other states without ever touching a real or inert firearm. I’m sure many people would be fine with that, but I’m certainly not. Wyoming is already a constitutional carry state, but I wonder how all the other states that require actual training are going to feel when people from Wyoming now have reciprocity in their state after just skimming through an online course (and the test is a very easy one to pass, and you only need to get 40/50 questions right).
Unfortunately, this issue was not handled properly from the very top of leadership, and was pushed through despite many objections by both hunter Ed instructors, as well as others in the agency.
How unfortunate. Imagine if WYDOT were to apply this same faulty logic when issuing new drivers licenses.
They should apply the same logic. The road is the property of the taxpayers not WYDOT.
While some states may have required it since the 1950s, if you were born before January 1 of 1966 you are exempt from hunter safety requirements in the state of Wyoming. Unless hunting special units such as the elk refuge.
On line hunter safety? What a joke. Why not online first time drivers license exam?