Draft Report On WDFW, Mandate, Fish And Wildlife Commission Issued

An independent Washington think tank’s report raises more immediate questions about the state of the Fish and Wildlife Commission and its future than it does WDFW’s mandate to protect critters and provide harvest opportunities as well as how good it does its job.

Those are just two takeaways among many in the William D. Ruckelshaus Center‘s draft report to the legislature. Ordered up during the 2023 legislative session via an unexpected and unsettling budget proviso, it is expected to be presented to lawmakers later this month.

The 75-page document makes for meaty reading for close followers of the arcana of Washington fish and wildlife management, commission policies and dynamics and the push and pull of disparate and passionate groups, and it drew a smiling nod from one of my sources, but for the lay Evergreen State sportsman, the bottom line will be to watch for how much traction some of the ideas get in the halls of power during 2025’s long legislative session in Olympia.

THE FISH AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION came out of 1994’s merger of the old state Departments of Wildlife and Fisheries and passage of a 1995 referendum that attempted to remove politics from critter management oversight, but recent years have seen a lot of controversy around its members, decisions and meetings as it has been pulled towards more of a preservationist track through gubernatorial appointments amid a wider push to reform state fish and wildlife management. “Many” of the 112 people interviewed for the report consider the citizen panel to now be “dysfunctional.”

One of the top tasks that state lawmakers gave the Ruckelshaus Center was to consider WDFW and the commission’s governance structure – that is, who is the boss and how that all works – and provide ideas for improving the agency’s ability to function. To that end, the draft report presents three possible strategies:

Option 1: Maintain the status quo, which is to say, continue with the current model of the commission hiring and firing WDFW’s director and setting policy for the agency;

Option 2: Move WDFW into the Governor’s Office as a cabinet agency, leaving it to the state’s chief executive to decide who runs the shop, and turn the citizen panel into an advisory panel, something else or just eliminate it, or;

Option 3: Keep the commission but institute tackle boxes’ worth of reforms.

That last one would entail everything from how commissioners are appointed and establishing tribal engagement, to adding staff for the panel, tweaking its rules of procedures, training members how to be able to collaborate better and maybe even having a third-party neutral run the meetings.

But in the eyes of the Ruckelshaus Center, Option 3 would be a pretty heavy lift.

“If there is not sufficient political will or interest in making comprehensive, simultaneous reforms of the Commission discussed in the full report, then Option 3 is not a viable choice. Without these reforms, the embedded dysfunctions and issues that interviewees raised would likely continue. If the Legislature wants to improve the governing structure without all the reforms to the Commission, then the optimum choice, even considering potential tradeoffs, would be to establish WDFW as a cabinet agency,” the report states.

As for the mandate – that pretzel of a directive from Washington’s legislature to simultaneously “preserve, protect, perpetuate, and manage” fish, shellfish and wildlife and “attempt to maximize the public recreational game fishing and hunting opportunities” – interviewees recommended working to reduce conflict and improve collaboration before even trying to tackle revising it.

“Conditions do not currently support going through a process to revise the mandate,” the draft report states. “The present intensity and polarized nature of the public discourse related to fish and wildlife would make any effort to update the mandate politically contentious and would likely exacerbate current tensions among interested parties. If lawmakers were or are considering a collaborative effort to do so, it is worth pointing out that the conditions favorable to a collaborative process include a shared recognition that the issue on the table is a pressing problem for all/multiple interested and affected parties. Based on those that participated in this review, the mandate is not the most pressing problem.”

For those who viewed Washington and its politics as such fertile ground for reforming WDFW and fish and wildlife management that they brazenly held conferences on it, it amounts to a pretty strong rebuke.

THE RUCKELSHAUS CENTER IS A joint project of Washington State University and the University of Washington meant to “help people work together to develop shared solutions to challenging policy issues” such as fish and wildlife management.

Chosen almost completely from within Washington’s borders, the 112 people they interviewed included everyone from current and former commissioners and WDFW directors to fishing and hunting organizations, environmental groups and tribal representatives to county, state and federal agencies, livestock, commercial fishing and shellfish interests to current and former legislators.

Count Brian Blake among that last category.

“My concern is the legislature uses the report as an excuse to modify the mandate of the Department,” warns Blake, a former chair of House of Representatives’ natural resources committee and Grays Harbor-based duck and deer hunter.

Also count him among the “many” who consider the commission to be dysfunctional – “clearly,” he says.

The body “has been attempting to legislate instead of following the RCWs [Revised Codes of Washington] and the best available science,” Blake adds.

The recommendations of the draft report were first shared today by the Capital Press – earlier this week, the Ruckelshaus Center told this reporter that the final copy would likely be out the week of December 16 – and in the ag-world outlet’s article, current Commission Chair Barbara Baker takes issue with her charge being called chaotic.

“I believe this is not really dysfunction,” she tells reporter Don Jenkins. “All this unrest is a natural consequence of change. Dysfunction is in the eye of the beholder, and if the beholder doesn’t get what he wants, it’s dysfunction.”

Baker’s time at the helm has seen a focus on predators, which has led to highly charged meetings and decisions, staff turnover and the filing of about 54,000 spring bear hunting petitions. Some of that has been chronicled on this blog, and the commission’s carnivore-happy direction and conflicts are noted in the draft report.

“At the Commission level, numerous interviewees believe that animal rights groups currently have undue influence over multiple Commissioners, pointing to recent decisions on issues such as the spring bear hunt, wolf downlisting, and cougar harvest levels. Other interviewees stated that the Commission agenda focuses too narrowly on the interests of some special interest groups. They cited the amount of time spent on large predator species such as wolves, bears, and cougars. Multiple interviewees voiced concerns that some of the Commission’s decisions are based more on the perspectives of special interest groups than Department scientists,” it states.

On the flip side, “multiple” interviewees told Ruckelshaus interviewers that WDFW has historically given sportsmen’s groups “undue influence” over decisions, behavior that continues to today, though they also see “a conscious shift” in agency culture that is leading to a “more balanced approach” that accounts for the interests of sportsmen as well as others.

“The report affirms much of what we’ve emphasized in recent years,” states Dan Wilson, cochair of the Washington Chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers as well as a report participant. “Despite the Department’s strong investments in biodiversity, habitat connectivity, and public outreach, the Commission continues to face significant challenges stemming from its ineffective governance and a lack of focus on overarching priorities, including foundational relationships with Tribal nations. While the report may provoke calls for sweeping reforms or even the dissolution of the Commission, its practical, actionable recommendations are the most valuable. Prioritizing improvements to appointment and confirmation processes and establishing enforceable governance guidelines and enhanced accountability will better serve the Department, the public, and our shared wildlife.”

Indeed, one of the draft’s recommendations is to change the process for seating commissioners. One idea is “to establish a bipartisan legislative committee that vets and either appoints Commissioners or provides candidates to the Governor to select for legislative confirmation.” Theoretically, that could allow for a compromise pick rather than a slew of one-sided nominations, as seen in recent years from a multiterm governor and his staff.

THE MISBALANCE DIRECTLY LED TO ONE of the commission’s biggest recent missteps, the draft Conservation Policy. The commission might have gotten away with merely ruffling hunters and anglers with it, but the policy was immediately put on the backburner just as it neared a vote and a number of tribes formally asked to consult with the state on the far-reaching guidance document. Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission Chair Ed Johnstone twice weighed in against the policy, and notably, his November monthly column touches on it in calling for restructuring the commission, for various reasons.

Marie Neumiller, senior Northwest coordinator for the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, says she’s not totally surprised by what she read in the draft report she contributed to.

“While I agree that there are concerns with the current commission, correcting the dysfunction does not require a full revision to the commission structure and/or department,” Neumiller says. “The issues facing the current commission can be fixed by commissioners simply honoring the mandate, working with department staff in a respectful manner, creating meaningful working relationships with tribal co-managers on applicable policy discussions, restored decorum and rules of order, following their code of conduct, following state meeting regulations, and respecting public records requests.”

She says to do so, “accountability measures” probably would need to be in place.

Also among the interviewees, Mitch Friedman of Conservation Northwest, who while being a predator advocate has balanced that with a far more pragmatic approach than the hard-line fish and wildlife reformists.

“Broad support for priorities like habitat connectivity and biodiversity, as reflected in the Ruckelshaus report, demonstrates the path forward for Washington state,” Friedman says. “By embracing these values, strengthening tribal partnerships, securing dedicated revenue for conservation efforts, and maintaining a strategic focus, the agency can make meaningful progress for wildlife. We are optimistic that the commission, department, and legislature will thoughtfully consider the report’s recommendations to improve governance and achieve better outcomes.”

State lawmakers originally gave the Ruckelshaus Center a deadline of June 1 of this year to submit findings, but subsequently granted an extension that moved the due date back to December 1. Interviewees were told their sessions would take about 90 minutes each and they were asked 16 questions, many with followups. After recently being sent courtesy copies of the draft report, they were told to submit any corrections to factual inaccuracies by this coming Monday morning.