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Outdoors: Hard times hit Fish and Wildlife department
BOB MOTTRAM
The Tacoma News Tribune
June 18, 2003

Poor? The Department of Fish and Wildlife is so poor that it's got to boil suspenders for soup because it can't afford to buy a belt.

It's so poor that ... it's got to stop selling fishing and hunting licenses in its regional offices because it can't afford to pay for staff to issue them.

And that's pretty poor, considering that 16 to 18 percent of its annual operating budget derives from sales of such licenses.

Starting July 1, you'll have to buy your licenses online or by phone or from retail dealers at sporting goods stores or marinas.

Currently, the department employs "customer service specialists" to provide information to callers and visitors and to sell licenses at its headquarters in Olympia, in regional offices in six cities and in a district office in Wenatchee.

But no more. This agency is so poor that ... Fish and Wildlife Director Jeff Koenings and Deputy Director Larry Peck had to duck out of the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission's June meeting hours early to start planning immediately for the agency's reduction in force. They intend to reduce the 1,610-employee department by about 80 positions, including the customer-service ones, to meet a shortfall of $14.3 million in the agency's 2003-05 budget.

They couldn't remain for the rest of the meeting, Koenings said, because every day that these positions exist whacks another bunch of calories from the agency's suspender soup.

Now that's poor.

• Only 3 to 4 percent of state license sales take place in department offices now, by the way, the rest elsewhere. So the department figures the change won't be a significant inconvenience to the public.

• Dawn Reynolds of Pullman told her Fish and Wildlife Commission colleagues this month that she's been a member of the commission since 1999 and "it seems we're always addressing cougar issues."

Well, Ms. Reynolds, it seems that way to me, too. Maybe that's because you are.

Maybe it has something to do with the Washington voters who decided in 1996 to ban hunting of cougar with hounds. The move was the first in what may be a developing Washington tradition of managing wildlife through the initiative process. The initiative in this case, driven by a national animal-rights organization, worked so well that in 2000 Gov. Gary Locke felt compelled to sign a legislative bill to allow resumption of limited hound hunting. In spite of the partial resumption, cougars continue to take a toll of domestic animals and of the commission's time.

They did so again at the June meeting, where Sean Carrell of the Department of Fish and Wildlife's enforcement division said that in the three seasons since the department's public safety cougar removal program began, citizens hunting under it have killed 145 cats. The program provides for issuance of a quantity of special hound-hunting permits based on the number of cougar-human "contacts" in a given area in a given period.

Citizens or the department killed an additional 94 cats during the same period in direct defense of livestock or pets and 564 in recreational hunts without hounds.

Total cougar harvests dropped following implementation of the hound ban, then grew fairly steadily through the 2001-02 season as hunters adapted to the new restrictions. In 2002-03 they took a 34 percent plunge from the season before, however, to 213, despite the fact that sales of cougar tags had held steady at about 57,000.

Donny Martorello, the department's bear, cougar and special species manager, says he wasn't surprised.

"We've been hitting them pretty hard," he told the Fish and Wildlife Commission.

The number of citizen complaints about cougars to the department also has declined, which also is no surprise to Martorello, and the agency expects to issue fewer public safety cougar removal permits next season as a result.

It's also looking at some other possibilities, one of which is pursuit-only hunting with hounds, an idea that could be controversial. Managers already considered the idea at least once and then shelved it. In this case, Martorello said, such a season could help the department better estimate cougar populations through capture-recapture research and could help it determine whether pursuit seasons make cougars more wary of people and less likely to confront them.

• For some people in cougar country, however, it all seems too little too late.

Craig Vejraska is chairman of the Okanogan County Commission. He showed up at the June meeting to tell the Fish and Wildlife Commission his county's government has "been inundated with cougar complaints.

"It doesn't seem like this commission and the Department of Wildlife understand the danger," he said. "We're tired of paying the bill with our livestock."

Vejraska said he wants "to have a hound season that actually takes some numbers; to have a pursuit season to train some hounds that actually can catch cats."

Mary Lou Peterson, a member of the Okanogan County Commission, said that, within living memory, county residents have not experienced as many cougar confrontations as occur now. People have lost horses, cattle, sheep, llamas and dogs, she said. One rancher lost 40 head of horses in two years.

"We have got to move beyond the regulation you have now to protect the people of the county," she said.

• It's the same type of behavior that results in TV monitors in convenience stores, and it's all about ethics. And - in this case - it's all about fish. It has prompted the state to close some waters that a lot of folks enjoyed fishing.

The Department of Fish and Wildlife closed the lower 400 feet of the popular Icicle River in Chelan County to protect native Wenatchee stock spring chinook that are listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act.

In a perfect world, it wouldn't be necessary.

The old regulations allowed fishing for non-native Carson stock spring chinook in the Icicle from 500 feet below the Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery rack to the mouth of the Icicle. Problem was, some anglers anchored near the mouth and cast into the Wenatchee River, which is closed to fishing, posing a danger to the native fish.

"This illegal activity has increased over the past four years in spite of efforts to educate anglers and enforce the Wenatchee closure," the department said.

So now a portion of the Icicle is closed, too, and you can thank a handful of people who, no doubt, call themselves "sportsmen."

Bob Mottram: 253-597-8640
bob.mottram@mail.tribnet.com

Guess there just isn't enough money in the "general fund". What a freaking joke. That can't even use the money we generate for them.

How many sales actually come out of the regional offices?? For me it's alot faster and easier to head to Fred Meyer or K Mart right down the road.

I personally don't see why such a stink is being raised about this.

the article says 3-4 percent..


I think the big stink is about how everything is ran right now within the WDFW..

I smelt a little sarcasim in his article

If anything I see them trying to run it a little better by eliminating this waste.
No, it's not much, but it's a start.

If they want to cut some of the waste they should start with the deadwood at the top not the clerks and services to the people who foot the bills.

So they need to cut costs without cutting services.. that means eliminateing the waste!!! Not raise fees and just pass it onto us.. Just a tiny example.. I just got a letter from WDFW asking me if i wanted to become a fishing license dealer.. How many other guide got these??? now granted it's only .35$ but there is also the envelope, the paper and all the labor it took to draft, approve and ship the letter.. all thoes things add up and multiplied by however many they sent out. on top of that such things happen by the hundreds if not thousands.. Anyway i wanna see them do a better job with what we already give them. then if they succeed then they can ask for more.
If i were to give WDFW a letter grade for what they have done since i have been alive i'd give them an F-

Do more with what you have? That sounds suspiciosly like a Republican type idea....careful with that you might start something. I think performance audits in this state are long overdue to see where the real money is being spent and wasted. That is not a reall popular idea with Gary Locke as he and the legislature has blocked all attempts to do so. Now the Democrats are really breaking with their liberal tax and spend policies by giving Boeing a 3.2 billion dollar windfall. Seems that when it may mean losing jobs even the Democrats resort to tax cuts. I am quite sure there is some waste at WDFW but who decides what is waste and what is necessary?

Grandpa, May lightning strike me down , I agree with you. Performance audits are way overdue in this state. Although I believe that Government by its very nature can not operate like a business, I do believe that fiscal oversight returns more efficiency and productivity.

You mean actually make them accountable for their performance???? Politicians would never agree to that but if you ask me, it's part of the checks and balances that is missing. Government has a blank check to play with and there's nothing we can do about it. Last year the gas tax was voted down this year Locke writes one in.

Grandpa, it's the same ol' $hit. The legislature and county councils vote themselves a raise and then say they have to cut services to save money.

Hey Rob

Does this sound familiar; " Could some of those "cuts" have been made in there own management? Could a Bio or two have been let go? Could a publication or 50 been cut? Could the Hunting and fishing rules been published in black and white instead of color? Could a few less computers been purchased? Could two or three new trucks or cars been cut back? The list is endless, except we were not even given a chance to see the list!"


I had wrote this on the thread called "pay to punch" on 6-18!

Isn't it funny that some people just now understand some of the waste that WDFW does with their limited funds!


Cowlitzfisherman

wdfw's gettin' audited next month i believe....but why? when they try to close hatcheries that don't have the greatest bang to the buck people complain and want them kept open anyways...not in my backyard ......

Well it's about time!

Now maybe we will be able to see what the "wildlife funds" have been spent on. Do you have any idea how long the audit will last?

Cowlitzfisherman

Since you are not allowed to see the list, how do you know waste is going on?

Lead thrower,

You asked;" Since you are not allowed to see the list, how do you know waste is going on?

I know that it's a hard to figure out, but haven't you ever asked yourself WHY is WDFW always having these short falls of funds each year?

How many times have you walked through their new building in Olympia and seen all those individual little office spots sitting empty with the best computers that our money can buy sitting emty and there is nobody at home? And please don't tell me that they are all out in the field or at meetings either. You don't really need to see THEIR list to add two and two together and come up with four!

It will be interesting to see how their audit comes out. But if it is like most audits that I have been involved in, or seen the state do, it will most likely be "laughable" to say the least!

This is truly a case of the fox guarding the hen's house. And guess which one is the fox! I can just see the summary findings now. State fines state in violation of wasting funds . . . yea right!

The entire audit will most likely do nothing but match receipts to their expenditures. A couple of years ago I wrote a 1000 page complaint to our states auditors' office concerning a payment that was authorized by one of our county commissioners to a friend. I even met with the head auditor officer to discuss all the issues that I had documented in my report.

She told me that I had done an excellent job of documenting the facts and that her office would get back to me when they had finished their findings. They were doing a complete audit of Lewis County. She said that it would be about a month before they could meet with the commissioner and confront him with the documents of my report. Well, I had heard that she had met with the commissioners and with their "legal staff" to discuss their findings. So after waiting for about two months with out hearing a single word back from her, I tried to contact her by phone. I got the run around from her staff for about two more weeks; she still would not return my calls. Finally, after demanding to find out what the status of my complaint was, I got a call from her assistant. I was told that her boss (the auditor that I had met with) was taking her last 2 weeks of vacation because she had given the state her notice that she was quitting her position, as an auditor, and was going to go to work for Lewis County.

Apparently she had cut herself a deal with the county commissioner who she was doing the conflict of interest complaint with and they (all three commissioners) created a brand new county position for her. They claimed that the county would supposedly not be doing these kind of thins again with her as an overseer. The states final audit report did find that the commissioner was in violation of state laws concerning the "conflict of Interest" issue but then decided that they would not prosecute him, and said that it would be up to the County Prosecutor Office to do that.

Well if you lived in Lewis County, you already knew what that outcome was! So the commissioner got his hand slapped; the x-auditor got the highest none elected paying job in the county; and we, the pepole, got screwed!

And the bad part about it all; it was all legal for them to do what they did.

So the next time that someone on our board accuses me of yelling "conspiracy" they better walk down the trail that I have already walked! So do I expect to see much come from the WDFW audit. . . Daaaaaaa!!

PS; I have a paper-documented trail to back up 100% of what I have said!



Cowlitzfisherman

CFM

Thanks

If the conspiracy comment was directed at me I was not yelling conspiracy, just simply asking.

lead thrower

It was NOT directed at you!


Cowlitzfisherman

Well for one I will not buy my fishing license online ever again. It took 3 tries, and a trip to my local fred meyer to get it resolved. Got no puch cards 1st time so I called and was told to return it to olympia and they would reissue. @nd time no parking sticker. Called again and they told me that was not possible and I needed to take it to the regional office. Told them I wa not taking a day off work to accomplish that. Wound up going to fred meyer and the clerk there called and explained to them what i had in my possession was not a complete fishing license package. Finally got straightened out. This was times 3 because i bought both of my sons their license packages and those also were screwed up. Typicial Fish and Wildlife dept attitude towards the public I feel.

Speaking of performance audits I totally agree.. but be careful what you wish for most of our hatcheries are returning fish at a rate around 1% of thoes planted.. Natural survival rates are between 3-6%