Policy Cutoff Update On Washington Fish-, Wildlife-related Bills In Olympia

WTH? Legislative policy cutoff day comes and goes in the state capitol last Friday without comment from the Olympia Outsider™, that watcher of all things Washington fish and wildlife?!?

Commission bills on the docket! Wolf and grizzly legislation on the loose!! Hunting and angling license fee increase proposals proposalling, and such!!!

Surely there can be no finer grist for the Olympia Outsider™ than what the 2025 legislature has sown for him this session, and yet his gristmill is quiet, nobody’s parked outside and the lights are off?

Lo the sure waste of a million likes, a hundred thousand comments and tens of thousands of shares that stories like this always harvest on social media, making them so worth the writing time and the tedious hyperlinking and proofreading (lol) and all that.

Fraud! Malfeasance! Dereliction of duty!

Ahem, guilty as charged. As it turns out, on Friday ol’ Oly Outs was actually outside trying to catch himself a fish out of a river as hard-working lawmakers’ deadline to get non-budget bills out of their initial assigned committee came and went.

You win some, you lose some, as the Olympia Outsider™ likes to tell his wife and kids, the dog, the cats, the stupid jig hook that bent on Friday and he lost a world-record winter steelhead, etc., etc., etc.

Anywho, so about those bills … With the caveat that technically no bill in Olympia is ever dead-dead-dead, and with it pouring outside like it’s November again and nothing better to do today, here’s a look at where things stand in the halls of power:

FISH AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION

With the Fish and Wildlife Commission having become “dysfunctional” in recent years according to numerous close observers, three bills took aim at the citizen panel that oversees WDFW policy and hires and fires its director.

The bills may have been more pro forma than actual reformation given other legislative priorities (see Deficit, Budget, $10-12 Billion; Redesign, State Flag, This Time With More Green In It), but HB 1685 would have stripped the commission of its authority and moved WDFW into the governor’s cabinet. Flavored and favored by the likes of Washington Wildlife First, it received a hearing but that was all.

Two other bills looked to shore up the abused commission appointment process that got us into this mess in the first place.

HB 1930 would have given counties direct say in the appointment of six members, while SB 5728 looked to create a 14-member nomination committee to forward the names of broadly supported potential appointees to the governor to choose from. While the former had a hearing, the latter did not (and that’s the last time the Olympia Outsider™ EVER participates in the legislative process ever again).

But seriously, the impassioned statements of Senator Mike Chapman (D-Port Angeles) at the end of one of his recent Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee hearings last week suggest that – at least for this legislative session – the current commission-WDFW structure will stand as new Governor Bob Ferguson’s office conducts interviews and selects two people to fill the seats of the rescinded last-minute appointments from former Governor Jay Inslee last month.

WOLVES

At that same meeting, Chapman also heaped pressure onto the commission to “look at some other options” in regards to wolves in Northeast Washington, that part of the state where their numbers and conflicts are thickest, following the introduction of several bills (HBs 1311 and 1442 and SB 5354) that looked to downlist them in certain counties or delist ’em statewide.

None of the bills were moved, but Chapman pointedly asked hardcore wolf advocates if packs are doing better than they were a decade ago (2014 year-end count: 16 packs, five successful breeding pairs, minimum of 68; 2023 year-end count: 42 packs, 25 pairs, at least 260 wolves) and hinted that it might have been interesting to vote on one of those bills, but said it was “fair” to “give the new Fish and Wildlife Commission, the new Governor’s Office, give them a chance” to work on the issue instead.

That may or may not involve translocation, which was brought up several times during the meeting as well as very late in February 14’s Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting, signifying that with the Colville Tribes’ recent offer of wolves from their reservation, the idea of moving some westward is now on the prowl a little more seriously.

Interestingly, not all wolf fans love the idea. They pointed to issues with the Colorado translocation as well as “the psychic damage caused to animals by trapping them, caging them, transporting them, and releasing them in strange territory.”

GRIZZLY BEARS

After the feds last year decided to move Ursus horriblis into the North Cascades – and damn the big bruins’ snowflake feelings anyhow! – HB 1825 would have changed a mid-1990s state law that essentially barred WDFW from reintroducing grizzly bears and only allowed the agency to manage native ones. The bill had been scheduled for action, but ultimately that was “deferred” by the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee.

FEE INCREASE BILLS

Budget-oriented bills have a later cutoff than those on the policy side, but for the record, SB 5583, which would raise fishing and hunting license fees for most Washington sportsmen by 38 percent, was moved out of Chapman’s committee on a party-line vote (“without recommendation” from the five Democrats; “do not pass” from the four Republicans). It is scheduled for its first public hearing in Senate Ways and Means on Tuesday at 1:30 p.m.

And with the tough state budget outlooks, a bill that dropped last week, HB 2003, would bring back 2010-19’s Columbia River endorsement to fish for salmon or steelhead in the big creek or any of its tributaries from the Rocky-Tongue Point line up to Chief Joseph Dam. It would cost $7.50 for residents and nonresidents ($6 for youths and seniors; prices would likely be higher for all due to dealer fees, etc.) and funds would be used to “facilitate recreational salmon and steelhead selective fishing opportunities on the Columbia river and its tributaries, including scientific monitoring and evaluation, data collection, permitting, reporting, and enforcement.”

It has a hearing on Monday in the House Appropriations Committee at 1:30 p.m.

And HB 1955 would expand the ranks of Washington’s youth anglers and shellfishers by raising the age an adult license is required from 16 to 19, a significant cost savings (youth base price: $5; adult: $45) for parents and kids like Christopher Chan, a senior at Lake Washington High School, who while able to afford his own, recognized “many do not, and I think that fishing and shellfishing is something that should be readily available to all youth regardless of income,” during a hearing on the bill.

ENFORCEMENT

Compared to most other fish- and wildlife-related bills his session, Substitute House Bill 1325 is off to a veritable flying start, having passed all the way out of the lower chamber on a 97-0 vote. It would make certain big game hunting and other fish and wildlife violations natural resource infractions (finable up to $500) instead of criminal offenses that have to be dragged through overburdened county judicial systems.

Doing so with low-level fishing and small game violations via a 2020 law change boosted court resolutions from 16 percent to better than 80 percent, according to former WDFW legislative director Tom McBride.

FUR FARMING

SHB 1775, which goes after fur farming and the manufacturing of fur goods, was amended to exempt products used to make flies and other fishing products after pushback from fly shops. It has been roll cast over to Appropriations.

FUR BAGS

In his own weak defense, the Olympia Outsider™ was not completely derelict in his cutoff deadline reporting duties on Friday. Following his fishing trip, that night he managed to string a few words together on the bipartisan passage of bipartisan House Joint Memorial 4004, which asks Congress and the Trump Administration for more leeway to manage pinnipeds in Washington. The bill was referred to the rules committee.

FURRY FANGERS

And finally, SB 5485, which would have barred counties from sending out deputies with dogs to hunt down problem black bears, cougars or bobcats without WDFW authorizing it first, received a public hearing but was not moved, though cat-chasing Klickitat County Sheriff Bob Songer was run up a tree by Senator Chapman, who bade him to “adhere to the agreement” that apparently had been worked out between various state and county parties.

Editor’s note: With Mrs. Olympia Outsider™ beginning to doubt her husband’s promises that this would be just a short little blog, he’s going to have to pinch it off here, but if there are bills of note that are missing here, be sure to drop a line to OO’s agent at awalgamott@media-inc.com.