WDFW Commission Chair Questions Recruiting More Washington Sportsmen

A pro-hunting and -fishing organization continues to roll out unflattering internal Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission emails, this time a damaging communication that appears to indicate the chair is against recruiting more sportsmen, a stunning position for someone to have while overseeing policy for an agency actively trying to bring in more hunters, anglers and license dollars.

The email from Chair Barbara Baker of Olympia to Commissioner John Lehmkuhl of Wenatchee in early 2023 is about the “evaluation of an agency employee,” according to Todd Adkins of the Sportsmen’s Alliance in a 2:43-minute video posted this afternoon and which shows a redacted version of the message.

The visible portion reads:

“In terms of a future performance agreement, the following is important to me:

I do not support recruitment of any current users of our natural resources, excluding ethnic, minorities, and youngsters. Restated positively – the only people that I believe we should be recruiting are young people and ethnic minorities. And in terms of the latter, recruitment might be the wrong word. Determining and eliminating the barriers to their participation in outdoor activities states it better. The main point I am making here as I believe there is enough pressure on our resources without going out and looking for people to utilize the opportunity provided.

…

Barbara”

Baker sent the email the evening of January 23, 2023, about three and a half weeks before the Fish and Wildlife Commission publicly discussed, modified and approved “Performance Evaluation Elements” for Director Kelly Susewind.

It’s one of many commissioner messages that the Sportsmen’s Alliance has released in recent weeks from what it has dubbed the “Fanatical Four” – Baker, Lehmkuhl, Lorna Smith of Port Townsend and Melanie Rowland of Twisp – and which are centered around responses to cougar attacks on people, coordinated efforts to derail the spring bear hunt, restricting the hunting of rarer birds, suspicious leaked emails, the tiresome business of listening to the public, and more.

The Ohio-based organization has petitioned Governor Bob Ferguson to remove the quartet, just as he pulled two members named to the commission in the last days of former Governor Jay Inslee’s administration.

“It’s not just inappropriate, but it’s against several of your mandates,” states Adkins about Baker and her email. “We remain forever hopeful that the governor at some point will say, ‘I have seen enough,’ and do the right thing.”

Sportsmen’s Alliance has acknowledged that Ferguson has no deadline to respond to their petition, or even legally needs to, but promises more releases from the trove of public records it has acquired through state disclosure laws. The state legislature tasked WDFW and the commission with, among other items, maximizing “public recreational game fishing and hunting opportunities.”

This afternoon, asked to explain her thoughts or shed light on the redacted paragraphs in her email, Baker said she wouldn’t be making any comments until ongoing litigation around a Sportsmen’s Alliance lawsuit against WDFW over release of public records or the petition is resolved.

Few sportsmen would be against recruiting more youth and ethnic minorities to the woods and waters – the bigger the tent, the better for critters and wildlands, not to mention for helping protect access to public lands, as seen this month in the battle against a Republican senator from Utah hell bent to dispose of USFS and BLM ground.

And some would agree with Baker that in the face of habitat loss and impacts from a changing climate, there is a LOT of pressure on fish and wildlife these days. Witness all the ESA listings, quotas and e-regs around certain popular native species, not to mention improved technologies and communications for targeting them.

But at the same time, being against the “recruitment of any current users of our natural resources,” her comments represent a serious concern to fishing and hunting businesses, including this one.

Ultimately, the final director performance agreement the commission signed off on in mid-February 2023 only briefly touches on recruitment – “Complete a plan to better recruit, retain, and reactivate anglers, hunters, and nature appreciators” – as part of Director Susewind’s remit. It followed on a major WDFW project in 2022, and which I participated in, that yielded an updated R3 strategy.

The release of Baker’s recruitment email also comes as she and the rest of the commission prepare to meet this Thursday and Friday in Olympia for committee and full-panel discussions. Public comment on Friday may be pretty fired up as animal-rights and sportsmen’s groups urge members to attend and speak.