BY ANDY WALGAMOTT, NORTHWEST SPORTSMAN MAGAZINE
Washington state lawmakers won’t arrive in Olympia for several months, but WDFW is already putting out feelers to bring back much-needed fishery funding.
A recently submitted agency request asks to restore $4.8 million in the 2027-29 budget for salmon and steelhead monitoring that got snagged during the last two-year session of the legislature.
The effects of that are coming home to roost especially hard on North Sound rivers.
Just today WDFW announced that the upper 8 miles of the Snohomish River would not open for coho as scheduled this Saturday in time for the big Everett Coho Derby due to “decreased monitoring capacity.”
“That loss of capacity requires reducing the geographic footprint of the Snohomish fishery so that adequate monitoring can occur for the portion of the river that will open on Sept. 26,” reads WDFW’s fishing rule change.
And earlier this year, there was no wild steelhead season on the Skagit and Sauk Rivers because WDFW didn’t have the money to perform required creel surveys and other work; it costs a minimum of $350,000 to hold the season. There won’t be a fishery there in early 2027 either for the same reason.
Basically, fish stocks listed under the Endangered Species Act and/or jointly managed with tribes require far more extensive creel surveys and catch sampling than, say, your average everyday trout lake, bass pond or perch pit.
From 2021 to 2025, Pugetropolis salmon and steelhead monitoring money came from a special budget proviso, but two years ago, the state legislature failed to fund WDFW’s request to keep it coming. (Yes, lawmakers hiked the cost of your license that same year; yes, lawmakers took an equal amount of money out of WDFW’s General Fund disbursements, making it a wash.)
That led to the canceled or pared-back fishing seasons.
“Given that fishing opportunities in Washington depend on robust monitoring programs, the inability of WDFW to monitor fisheries will continue to diminish future recreational fishing opportunities. WDFW has explored shifting staff, resources, and timing of fisheries in an attempt to reduce the impact of budget cuts on popular fisheries. However, without restoring these critical monitoring funds, WDFW has no other option than to reduce and cut fishing seasons,” the agency’s budget request warns.
It’s not only costing anglers opportunity on the Snohomish, Skagit as well as Stillaguamish systems, but in the case of mountain towns like Darrington and Marblemount, lost revenues. The last Skagit-Sauk steelhead season generated 11,222 angler trips and an estimated $2.33 million in local spending, according to WDFW.
Fishery monitoring isn’t the only thing WDFW is looking to restore to its budget. It’s also requesting $7.6 million for 13 game warden positions, $4.8 million for forest health and fire prevention on its lands, $4 million to boost biodiversity funding back up, and $2.4 million for maintaining wildlife areas and water accesses.
“All through the summer, legislators have called us to ask why our agency cut a variety of areas. They are also surprised to hear that we have lost more than 100 positions. To our continued surprise, most legislators did not seem familiar with the cuts from the last two years,” said WDFW Director Kelly Susewind in a letter to state budget officials. “Our ‘restore’ packages … would allow us to partially restore cuts and provide an opportunity to further explain to legislators about the impacts to Washington’s natural resources.”
In his September 10 message to the director of the Office of Financial Management, Susewind also outlined other budget requests as well as “reduction packages” – areas WDFW has identified for cuts.
“There is great value in [the latter work], but we understand the predicted budget shortfalls at the state require a hard look at General Fund items,” he added.
State agency funding requests like these are an early step in the budget process. Next up is for requests to be included in Governor Bob Ferguson’s proposed budget, or if not there, those from Senate or House budget writers.
It’s pretty important that this funding be restored, both for Pugetropolis salmon and steelhead anglers and WDFW’s credibility and its mandate.
