A Fiery Morning With The Washington Fish And Wildlife Commission

Well … that was certainly a bit more than I think everyone bargained for.

Fired by a steady drip of videos highlighting certain Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission members’ internal communications, hunters came a’calling this morning for the resignations of four of them, and shooting right back was the chair who said they were flat out being lied to by an out-of-state organization and they didn’t know what they were talking about.

And then in the next breath the chair stated that she had a meeting with the Governor’s Office this coming Monday.

It was the latest and largest and flashiest flash point over the composition, direction and compatibility of the citizen panel overseeing WDFW that I’ve seen, with bunker busters for almost everyone, and it came as national politics threaten the very element that Washington fish, wildlife, hunters, anglers, birdwatchers, hikers, campers and other outdoor lovers all depend upon the most – public land.

My pen literally ran dry as I furiously took notes, but fortunately for my avid readers on the commission and elsewhere, there was a Sharpie on hand.

THE NUT IS THAT SPORTSMEN’S ALLIANCE OF OHIO has been posting a series of videos, backed up by records acquired through public disclosure requests, that bring to light unflattering emails and text messages between what they’re calling the “Fanatical Four.”

The four are Chair Barbara Baker of Olympia, and Commissioners John Lehmkuhl of Wenatchee, Melanie Rowland of Twisp and Lorna Smith of Port Townsend.

Sportsmen’s Alliance has petitioned Governor Bob Ferguson for their removal because they “have demonstrated incompetence, misconduct, and malfeasance in office.” They acknowledge that Ferguson has no deadline to respond to their petition, or even needs to.

Up until yesterday, the records releases have centered around commissioners’ unseemly focus on cougar attacks on people, coordinated efforts to derail the spring bear hunt, suspicious leaked emails, the tiresome business of listening to the public, etc.

But on Thursday – timed for public comment during today’s commission meeting for maximum effect – Sportsmen’s Alliance dropped “the big one,” a video headlined “Felonies!?! Washington Fish and Wildlife Commissioners Conspire to Delete Public Records.”

It made part of its case with 39 pages of texts from Baker that Sportsmen’s Alliance had heavily redacted, but recorded her stating at one point, “You were smart to stay away from this call with Ruth. I wonder if I am conspiring against fellow commissioners.? I never did that – even with Kim. We’re going to need to talk about this. But for now, please delete.”

While the date isn’t known, it’s most likely that Ruth is Ruth Musgrave, former Governor Jay Inslee’s natural resources advisor, and Kim is Inslee-thorn-in-the-side, former Commissioner Kim Thorburn of Spokane.

Further along in the texts is another message stating, “Ruth is going to talk to our rogue commissioners after tomorrow to let them know all of this is very disappointing to the gov. And… delete. (“D” from now on).”

The timeframe isn’t visible, so it’s not clear who all the chair is calling a rogue or what vote might have triggered the trip to the woodshed with Ruth.

And then there’s, “This is a very big deal to me. B PS – I will delete this post and ask you to do the same.”

Other examples Sportsmen’s Alliance posted showed Lehmkuhl and Rowland may have deleted records subject to their request.

Together, it showed a pattern of avoiding public records retention requirements. Sportsmen’s Alliance said that each instance is a potential felony.

THIS MORNING, IT LED TO MULTIPLE CALLS from the public for commissioners to resign.

“The commission model works, and has worked for decades and we have a good department to go along with it. But some on this commission have run this body into the ground and destroyed the system. They have nothing but disdain for hunting, traditional stakeholder groups including the tribes. Some of you are beyond redemption, and the only good thing you can do is leave and save your dignity. That is why I’m asking for the resignations of the four commissioners listed in the Sportsmen’s Alliance petition,” stated Dane Czarnecki, a young hunter and frequent commenter before the commission.

“The retired chief clerk of the House [Baker] can’t deny she didn’t know deleting public records was a crime,” added Cory Maxwell of Kitsap County.

Ross Sharp of Pierce County said it would be the last time he saw the quartet because he predicted Governor Ferguson, the former Attorney General of the state of Washington, wouldn’t stand for their behavior.

Speaking remotely, Dale Magart of Stevens County said controversial commission decisions around cougar and bear hunting should also be reversed and be based on science and not ideology, and said that the only way Baker, Lehmkuhl, Rowland and Smith would earn a sliver of respect from him would be for them to resign.

At the end of public comment, it was time for commissioners to respond.

The accusations did not sit well with Baker, who summoned her past as an attorney to fight back in the court of public opinion.

Earlier in the meeting she had acknowledged the “elephant in the room,” i.e., her texts that the Sportsmen’s Alliance had splashed across the interwebs. But she also said that the organization was “deceiving” those today trumpeting the allegations against her.

She intimated her text records had been redacted to give an appearance, even though WDFW had turned them over to SA with minimal redactions.

There are “damning words, I’ll admit,” Baker allowed, but where she would not detail other redactions earlier this week to this reporter, this morning in public she explained that the text where she stated “This is a very big deal to me. B PS – I will delete this post and ask you to do the same,” was related to an “extremely personal story” she had been sharing with Commissioner Molly Linville of Douglas County.

“What you’ve seen” from Sportsmen’s Alliance “is not real,” alleged Baker, who repeatedly pointed out the organization’s Midwest roots.

“Sportsmen’s Alliance is lying and they’re lying to you and the state,” she said.

As someone in the audience took issue with that, Baker requested they sit down. She described the 39 pages of texts as a compilation of messages after she had “accidentally deleted all my texts.” She said she had paid an expert hundreds of dollars to retrieve them “so that the state would have them.”

After strafing Sportsmen’s Alliance again – “they lied to the state and they’re lying to you” – Baker dropped another bomb, stating she had a meeting with the Governor’s Office early next week.

“Full disclosure, I have a meeting with the Governor’s Office on Monday. They asked for it. That’s what I’m gonna say. We will go from there,” Baker stated.

While that could fairly be interpreted as the Governor’s Office having requested the meeting, a spokeswoman for Governor Ferguson said Baker had “requested a meeting,” and that she would be meeting with Chief of Staff Shane Esquibel, Chief Operations Officer Franklin Plaistowe and Senior Policy Advisor for natural resources Owen Rowe.

Wrapping up her rebuttal, Baker said to the audience, “I’d request you know what you’re talking about, and I don’t think you do.”

OTHER COMMISSIONERS – BOTH THE ACCUSED and otherwise – also had thoughts.

“You guys have tried and convicted us” on social media, derided Lehmkuhl. “How American is that?”

He’d been frank with sportsmen, he said, and this was the treatment he got?

Smith said she really wanted to see the commission move past “this divisiveness” and “libelous accusations.”

She pointedly compared Sportsmen’s Alliance’s attack with comments today from Washington Chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers that were focused on the threat to public lands – BHA was also on hand to accept WDFW’s Organization of the Year award; congrats and kudos – and said that there was more at stake for the planet “than these inconsequential things.”

Smith also spoke darkly of the risk of fomentations and political assassinations, widespread gun ownership among Washington sportsmen and her and husband having to be on the watch out her front window for “strange black trucks driving by.”

“We have more in common,” hunters and the greater conservation community, Smith seemed to plead.

Commissioner Jim Anderson of Buckley extended an olive branch – one fruited with a caveat.

“I’m troubled by some of what I’ve seen” in the records, said Anderson, the retired executive director of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, but added that he agreed with Baker that some of the texts appeared to have been taken out of context.

Bottom line was that the commission was being asked to have a good process and honest communications, he said.

Commissioner Molly Linville, who was dropped from the panel early this year in the very last days of the Inslee Administration and then reinstated two months later by Governor Ferguson, said she echoed Anderson and that she found herself in a tough spot.

She said she’d read unredacted messages that showed she’d been “excluded” from past commission decision-making processes, but now she had to figure out how to be teammates with those who’d excluded her. Excluding her and other commissioners meant their voices weren’t included in those discussions, she said. Her return to the panel had brought a second extremely bitter pill, this from the other fenceline.

Rowland, herself a retired attorney who worked on ESA issues with the feds, had a sarcastic response to being boldly told “Melanie rhymes with felony” during public comment.

“That was very clever, very clever,” Rowland said. “I’m not aware I’ve done that, but it’s still very clever.”

Rowland touched on the ongoing fight to keep federal lands like those that ring the hills and heights of the Methow Valley in public hands and took a moment to praise her US Representative, Dan Newhouse (R), “not exactly known as an ultraconservationist,” she said, but who yesterday was one of five House Republicans who flat out said they would not vote for the Big Beautiful Bill if it came over from the Senate with the land disposal element from Utah Senator Mike Lee (R).

Commissioner Victor Garcia, a self-described “new kid on the block” – he joined the panel this spring and this was his first in-person meeting – played off Rowland’s sentiments and said, “Don’t let the land grab happen without a fight.”

Commissioner Woody Myers of Spokane seemed to do a little future forecasting about the ultimate results of the drip, drip, drip of Sportsmen’s Alliance’s videos.

“You can win the battle, but lose the war. The war is habitat; it’s not predators. We shouldn’t be fighting amongst ourselves. We can do a heckuva lot better if we put down our sword,” Myers said.

Easier said than done.

AFTER THE PUBLIC AND COMMISSIONERS had both said their pieces, Baker put the commission into recess for a much-needed 20-minute break. She was absent when Anderson gaveled the meeting back to order.

After returning, Baker explained that she’d been speaking to hunters and then to her accusers, Todd Adkins of the Sportsmen’s Alliance, and Brian Lynn, the organization’s Spokane-based and Ephrata-born-and-bred vice president of communications.

“There’s more to come from them,” Baker acknowledged.

Last month, SA said there were 477,000 records identified as responsive to their disclosure requests inre the commission. They also have a lawsuit out against WDFW about the pace of releasing those records.

Baker described her “sidewalk meeting” with Adkins and Lynn as “civil” and that they had agreed to meet later when things were resolved.

“They’re not taking either of those back,” Baker also stated of the lawsuit and petition for her removal.

In a phone interview early this afternoon, Adkins took issue with Baker’s allegations that his organization was lying about what they’d uncovered. He said the reason he’d redacted so much, including dates and timestamps, in her texts was to protect those in the “highly personal” messages being exchanged, not for any devious reasons.

Adkins also characterized Baker’s pushback on that particular text string as trying to “distract” from the other instances in her texts of her allegedly instructing people to delete public records.

“We have lied to nobody about nothing. At the end of the day, we’ve brought their words, their texts forward, and it’s as simple as that,” said Adkins.

This afternoon he posted a new video with more instances of Baker instructing people to delete messages.

SPORTSMEN’S ALLIANCE’S LAWSUIT AND PETITION are utterly forseeable consequences of environmental and animal-rights folks’ greedy use of the former governor and his appointment power to try and achieve their preservationist goals in what must’ve seemed like an easy mark in left-leaning Washington. They got the tide to go hard one way for awhile, and now it’s starting to rip back through like currents between islands in the San Juans.

The dysfunction is deep and powerful … but in early afternoon, the commission voted unanimously, 9-0, to accept the transfer of 9,055 acres in the Beezley Hills of Grant County west of Ephrata and north of Quincy from The Nature Conservancy.

It’ll become part of WDFW’s Columbia Basin Wildlife Area, cost an estimated $125 an acre a year to maintain, and be managed for the recovery of endangered pygmy rabbits and state-listed sage grouse. The agency says recreation could include hunting, birding, hiking, etc.

It was something good in a day that was something else.

And that is gonna have to be all I have to say about that if I want to get anything productive done today, and slip out this evening and catch another fish.

Clarification: June 30, 2025: While Chair Barbara Baker’s comments could fairly be interpreted as saying the Governor’s Office had requested the meeting with her, a spokeswoman for Governor Ferguson said Baker had “requested a meeting.”