If you harvest a deer, black bear, cougar, bobcat, or moose in Washington, WDFW asks that you submit a tooth (or the lower jaw, for bobcat) from your harvested wildlife to help gather biological data. This helps biologists estimate population size, growth rate, health, and mortality rates of Washington's game populations.
Hunters/trappers are required to submit black bear and cougar teeth and the lower jaw of a bobcat, per state law (WAC 220-415-090 and WAC 220-400-050). You must extract the premolar of your harvested black bear (with roots intact) using pliers and a screwdriver or dental elevator tool prior to submitting it to WDFW. Use the prepaid envelop provided by WDFW; this envelope does not go through the standard mail sorting process, where machinery can cause the teeth to fall out of standard envelopes. You can get tooth submission envelopes by contacting your regional WDFW office. Cougar teeth will be extracted by WDFW staff during mandatory pelt sealing and inspection, and the clean and air-dried lower jaw of the bobcat will be collected at time of pelt sealing.
For each species, specific tooth types give biologists the most accurate data. WDFW asks for the following tooth types based on recommendations from the lab (Matson's Standard Tooth Types (PDF)):
- Deer and moose: middle incisor
- Bear and cougar: first premolar
- Bobcat: lower canine
- The lower canine is extracted by WDFW staff after you submit the bobcat's lower jaw.
Removing deer teeth to determine age
How to remove a bobcat lower jaw to submit for aging
It takes approximately six months to get results from your submitted tooth. To do so, use the WILD ID (required) you submitted with the tooth, or teeth, to check the status and results.
- Tooth Age Lookup contains teeth from recreationally harvested animals only.
- Teeth submitted before 2001 did not contain WILD IDs and are not included in this information.
- Teeth submitted WITHOUT a reported WILD ID will not be reflected in this lookup.
- If you have forgotten your WILD ID go to the WILD System website, click Recreational login then click Look up your Account.
If you need further assistance, please contact the Wildlife Program at wildthing@dfw.wa.gov