BY ANDY WALGAMOTT, NORTHWEST SPORTSMAN MAGAZINE
“That’s validating.”
Those were the words of WDFW Deputy Director Amy Windrope immediately after learning that a lawsuit challenging the agency’s 2026 Game Management Plan had been thrown out in its entirety by a judge late this morning for a lack of standing.
WDFW and Sportsmen’s Alliance had both filed to dismiss the lawsuit from Washington Wildlife First and an ally, and the hunter advocacy organization was also pleased with the result from today’s hearing on the motions in Thurston County Superior Court.
“Washington Wildlife First never had standing from day one. Standing requires a concrete injury at the time someone files a lawsuit. The game management plan guides future actions that haven’t even begun to take shape yet. They had no standing and the judge rightfully dismissed it with prejudice, meaning they can’t refile it,” said Michael Jean, SA litigation counsel.
The 216-page plan covering deer, elk, moose, cougars, bears, ducks, turkeys, furbearers and other pursued animals was approved unanimously in February by the Fish and Wildlife Commission and represents an update from previous multi-year plans.
The GMP doesn’t actually set any seasons, but WDFW uses it as the broad framework for the hunting and/or managing of game species – for instance, it includes a chapter on pronghorn, though speed goats are not open under state seasons. It talks to recreational opportunities for each kind of game critter, data collection and management goals, and it implements the agency’s legislative directives to protect and provide.
But then in March, frequent court filers WWF and Martha Hall sued WDFW over the “unlawful development and approval” of the plan. They argued that instead of making the conservation of species for generations yet to come the GMP’s priority, the plan “allows for continued hunting of vulnerable, declining, and sensitive species without adequate population data or safeguards to prevent species decline.”
Thurston County Superior Court Judge Anne Egeler did not see it that way today. She ruled in favor of WDFW and its plan, finding that WWF and Hall’s legal standing was lacking, and dismissed the lawsuit.
“We’re pleased with the decision today and appreciate the Court’s thorough review,” a WDFW statement emailed out early this afternoon said.
“Got one more off the plate,” Joe Panesko, WDFW’s attorney, told the Fish and Wildlife Commission in briefing them on the results from court at the end of today’s virtual commission meeting.
“Washington Wildlife First is just following the radical anti-hunting playbook of filing frivolous lawsuits to destroy scientific wildlife management in favor of their ideological belief system,” said Brian Lynn, SA’s vice president of marketing and communications. “This was an open and shut case from the beginning and like their lawsuit with Commissioner Lorna Smith, it was nothing more than a ploy to distract from their own wrongdoing and radical agenda.”
The lawsuit with Smith is a reference to the federal civil rights case WWF and Smith filed in April against Windrope and WDFW Director Kelly Susewind claiming they’re the targets of attacks meant to chill their bird-dogging of the agency.
WWF and others have been engaged in a well-funded years-long campaign to move Washington fish and wildlife management towards a more preservationist bent, an effort reported on on this blog.
