HELENA - Vice President Dick Cheney, who shot his companion in a Texas hunting accident over the weekend, has not taken state-offered hunter's safety education courses in either his home state of Wyoming or Texas, records show.

Eric Keszler, a spokesman for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, said Monday the state has no record of Cheney ever taking a hunter's education course.

Tom Harvey, of Texas Parks and Wildlife, said there is no record of the vice president taking a course there, either.

Both states require hunters to take safety education courses, but only for people born after a certain date. Cheney, at 65, is too old to be required to take the courses in either Wyoming or Texas.

Wyoming requires hunter's education courses for all hunters born after Jan. 1, 1966, while Texas requires the courses of all hunters born after Sept. 2, 1971.

Cheney was born in 1941.

According to information released Monday by Texas game authorities, the vice president did have a valid hunting license, but he didn't have a required upland game bird stamp a Texas requirement that went into effect at the beginning of hunting season there last fall.

Texas game authorities issued the vice president a warning citation, which they typified as "routine."

Cheney on Saturday shot 78-year-old Harry Whittington, an Austin lawyer, in the face, neck and torso with bird shot while hunting quail at a south Texas ranch, according to Texas Parks and Wildlife Accident investigation documents released Monday. Whittington was retrieving a bird behind the rest of the hunters. Cheney accidentally shot him as Whittington rejoined the group and Cheney was focused on another covey of quail.

Cheney was firing a 28 gauge Perazzi shotgun. He shot Whittington at about 30 yards, the investigation concluded.

It's possible the vice president took a National Rifle Association hunter's safety course in Wyoming as a young man.

"Our state department has only been teaching (the course) since the early 1970s," Keszler said. Before that, Keszler said, the NRA taught hunter's education in Wyoming. The state does not maintain records of hunters who took NRA classes.

A representative of the vice president did not respond to reporter's questions about whether the vice president took an NRA hunter safety course.