West Virginia Free Hunting, Fishing, and Trapping for Disabled Veterans

West Virginia does not discount the license for a disabled veteran. It removes the license requirement. Under West Virginia Code 20-2-28 a qualifying veteran may hunt, trap, or fish in the state without obtaining a license at all, which also carries the permits and stamps a license would otherwise bundle. There are two separate statutory routes in, and a veteran who fails the first should test the second. Subsection (g) covers a West Virginia resident who was honorably discharged and who receives a veteran's pension based on total permanent service-connected disability as certified by the Veterans Administration. Note the wording: this route is written around a pension based on total and permanent service-connected disability, not around a bare percentage. Subsection (h) covers a disabled veteran who is a West Virginia resident and who, as certified by the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles, is eligible for the motor vehicle registration fee exemption under West Virginia Code 17A-10-8. That exemption has its own entry here, and its categories are wider than a rating: a veteran with a Department of Veterans Affairs vehicle grant, a veteran at one hundred percent total and permanent, a former prisoner of war, and a Medal of Honor recipient are all inside it. This is why the Department of Veterans Assistance says resident veterans who qualify for VA auto grant benefits, who have a one hundred percent permanent and total rating, or who have been a prisoner of war may qualify. The prisoner of war route runs through the registration fee exemption rather than appearing in the wildlife statute directly. Subsection (h) does open with the words "any disabled veteran," so a former prisoner of war with no disability is relying on the administering agencies reading those words broadly. They appear to. Apply rather than assume, and if the application is refused on that ground it is worth asking which statute the refusal rests on. The certification, not the rating letter, is what the game warden wants. For both routes the Director of the Division of Natural Resources is directed to propose rules for the certification of the veteran, the manner of applying for and receiving it, and the identification to be carried while hunting, trapping, or fishing. In practice the application goes through the Department of Veterans Assistance and the Division of Natural Resources publishes the form. Carry the certification. A separate provision covers serving members. Under subsection (c), all West Virginia residents on active duty in the armed forces may hunt, trap, or fish in season without a license while on leave or furlough, and the leave or furlough papers serve in lieu of a license and must be carried at all times. That is a genuine benefit with an easy failure mode: it is leave papers, on your person, not a military ID. None of these routes waives federal requirements. A federal duck stamp is still a federal duck stamp.