WDFW Commission Narrowly OKs Cougar Rulemaking Concepts For Developing 2024 Season

A deeply, starkly, bitterly divided Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission has directed WDFW staffers to develop a slate of cougar rulemaking proposals to get in place ahead of the start of hunting season this September.

On a 5-3-1 vote, commissioners approved a substitute motion from Chair Barbara Baker that other members said they had only seen last night and vociferously opposed moving forward with in favor of holding off a year for a more inclusive process.

But Baker was firmly determined, she’d done her vote counting beforehand, and now WDFW will begin drafting what’s known as a CR-102 based on directions from her motion and then take public comment before the commission holds a final vote sometime this summer.

Prompted by a petition commissioners approved last year, concepts from Baker’s motion include counting all independent-age cougars in the total mortality cap, which would include all sources of human-caused lion mortality – livestock conflict and public safety removals and hunting – as well as a single September 1-March 31 season, which could also be closed early by biologists based on other factors affecting the population or not opened at all if said lion mortalities met or exceeded 20 percent of the estimated population before September 1.

Currently, cougar seasons run September 1-December 31 as a general hunt and then January 1-April 31, depending on quota availability, which is set at the game management or population management level and based off population density and 10 to 16 percent growth rate.

While Commissioner Molly Linville, a Douglas County rancher, allowed that she actually agreed with many of those bullet points, she implored the commission to hold off on voting.

“Is this going to build trust or cause a firestorm we’re stepping into?” asked Linville, a veteran of the limited-entry spring black bear hunt wars. “I think it’s a firestorm.”

She repeatedly pointed out that she and Commissioners Jim Anderson, John Lehmkuhl and Steven Parker were all very uncomfortable with how the commission appeared to be proceeding and said that she hadn’t seen Baker’s motion before last night, which didn’t give her time enough to think about it.

When Baker said it wasn’t in fact a surprise and had come out of a Wildlife Committee recommendation, somebody – presumably Linville – could be heard to say, “That’s a lie.”

Commissioner Woody Myers acknowledged that Linville’s feelings had been hurt, as presumably had the three gentlemen, and he made a point that Baker’s motion misses the true issue.

“We don’t have a hunting problem with cougars. We have a damage control problem that pushes us above” mortality thresholds, Myers said.

A slide from WDFW staff earlier illustrated that point. According to well-sourced data from the Predator-Prey Project in Northeast Washington involving collared lions, out of 21 mortalities, 11 were due to conflict removals and only four were by hunters, the same number killed by other cats. Conflict removals are used in response to depredation losses.

“Let’s not forget our hunters. Let’s see what we can do about damage (control removals) in the future,” Myers said.

And then he voted in favor of Baker’s motion.

Also voting in favor was Vice Chair Tim Ragen – who’d made an initial similar motion that former state House clerk Baker substituted with hers – and Commissioners Melanie Rowland and Lorna Smith.

Linville abstained. If her efforts were to keep the commission out of a firestorm by taking more time to consider the issue – she’d voted in favor of an earlier failed motion from Anderson to essentially table the matter for a year to align with the Game Management Plan update – Smith seemed to revel in the conflict.

“I’m not disturbed by 5-4 votes that could go either way,” Smith said shortly before the meeting was adjourned just after 5 p.m.

Smith also had a spat with WDFW Director Kelly Susewind, trying to shut him down when he shared his perspective from the end of the table to say he was “in a bit of disbelief” about the discussion and said it was the first time a commission had dictated a rulemaking CR-102 with such specificity and “on the fly,” switching elements around.

“This deserves a better airing,” Susewind said.

Lehmkuhl, who had voted to accept the petition from cougar advocates that kickstarted today’s developments, said he didn’t want to be rushed into rulemaking and that he felt it was commissioners driving the bus, not WDFW staff. Like Myers, he also took issue with conflict removals, which he said accounted for 30 percent of cougar mortalities, which was “not acceptable to me, yet we don’t do anything about it.”

He said he was looking for a wholistic solution that brought everybody along and didn’t just use hunter take to decrease cougar mortalities.

The crisscrossing of motions on the table and discussion left even people familiar with Roberts Rules of Order wondering if anyone knew what they were voting on.

In the end it was yet another jarring meeting of the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commisssion as Governor Jay Inslee’s appointees and outside allies attempt to reform the citizen panel and its policies around fish and wildlife management in the state. Many comments during public input this morning urged the commission to act sooner than later.

In defending his motion, Ragen said he heard a lot of concerns about hunters and others, but “rarely” had he heard anybody put concerns about the state’s cougars in the forefront. He said part of WDFW’s mandate was to ensure a healthy population of the predators.

“I’m not out to remove all hunting, but I want that to be on a solid foundation in how we manage” the species, Ragen said.

Maybe so, maybe not, but while some commissioners suggested the pending rulemaking outcome was not predetermined, today’s determined rush to put things into effect this season, the overlooking of WDFW staffers’ professional judgment that there is no risk to the cougar population in holding off a year in making this decision, and the ignoral of Molly Linville’s heartfelt objections to a body that she clearly loves serving on all point in another direction.

Buckle up. Spring bear 2.0 is here.