BY ANDY WALGAMOTT, NORTHWEST SPORTSMAN MAGAZINE
Another round of heavy state budget cuts from state lawmakers could lead to reduced opportunities on important North Sound salmon rivers, coastal razor clam beaches and Cowlitz smelt dipping.
So warned WDFW Director Kelly Susewind in an all-staff memo today as he talked through impacts to the agency from what amounts to $14.4 million in new cuts per fiscal year after the Washington legislature passed its 2026 supplemental operating budget two months ago now.
That’s on top of a $20 million reduction last year, and Susewind said these latest cuts mean WDFW will also need to close its Omak Hatchery, reduce fall Chinook production in Willapa Bay meant to stabilize southern resident killer whale forage, “significantly” cut state wildlife area forest treatments, and lay off 41 staffers.
“From the outset, I want to acknowledge that these impacts represent real loss of the work of valued colleagues throughout the Department,” Susewind toplined in his budget memo.
Affected employees have been personally notified in the last two weeks, he said, and added that several vacant positions as well as 11 commissioned but vacant game warden positions were also eliminated.
In March as the legislature closed up shop, Susewind told the Fish and Wildlife Commission the budget situation was “bad for us,” and his memo today puts a finer points on those impacts.
Susewind said nearly all state agencies were affected by this year’s cuts, and in WDFW’s case, it’s forcing the agency to “modify, scale back, or stop doing some important work for fish and wildlife conservation.”
“We continue to prioritize ensuring staff are equipped and trained and that our objectives are aligned with our funding. We are doing the hard work of identifying work we will not do, instead of asking staff to pick up work that is no longer funded. In line with our Department’s values, we’ve approached the cuts by first looking for efficiencies and savings, vacancies, and as a final option, through a reduction in force. With this approach, we will remain a resilient agency,” he stated.
WDFW may be resilient but one of its core missions, providing fisheries, is on shakier and shakier ground in places, and that has angling advocates very worried and pushing back.
Larry Phillips, the Pacific fisheries policy director for the American Sportfishing Association and a former WDFW biologist and manager, said Washington’s recreational fishing community is “deeply concerned” about the new cuts, and said they “will impact fishing opportunity, fishery monitoring, and the department’s ability to effectively manage Washington’s fisheries.”
He said that even as continued budget challenges lay ahead, policymakers at the state level can’t keep “asking anglers and hunters to disproportionately fund programs that benefit all Washingtonians.”
According to Susewind’s memo, Fish Program will have less money to monitor salmon fisheries in the Snohomish, Stillaguamish and Skagit Rivers – where steelheaders will have lost two catch-and-release seasons to budget issues if next year’s forecast is also otherwise high enough to hold one – and “that may result in reduced freshwater fishing opportunity.”
Monitoring is needed because many fisheries occur over ESA-listed stocks, and holding them can require sampling, spawning surveys, smolt trapping, etc., as a condition of federal permits, comanager agreements or court settlements. That’s not free, of course, and WDFW said it is taking the potential for closures seriously and working with NMFS and the tribes to come up with a plan to limit any lost fishing opportunities while also abiding with monitoring requirements where Chinook and steelhead may be encountered.
In Southwest Washington, money’s now tighter for sampling and monitoring Cowlitz smelt and surveying razor clams, and that could lead to less time on the banks and beaches, Susewind said.
That latter one is particularly maddening. Razor clam openers are an economic driver for coastal communities during non-tourist-heavy times of the year, a net gain for state coffers.
And it’s not just clams that get people off couches, spending money, generating sales tax revenues and benefiting the state as a whole.
“Recreational fishing generates approximately $3 billion annually in economic output for Washington and contributes roughly $270 million in state and local tax revenue,” said ASA’s Phillips. “These reductions also come just one year after anglers and hunters supported an approximately 38 percent increase in license fees to help stabilize the agency’s budget.”
In other coastal cuts, Susewind said that less money for sampling and monitoring Willapa Bay commercial fisheries means net boats may not have as many days on the water.
“In addition to these reductions, the Fish Program will be scaling back rotenone purchases, purchase of clam and oyster seed for enhancing certain Puget Sound beaches, sport fishing pamphlet costs, and reducing administrative support,” he wrote.
In terms of staff capacity, Susewind said the Business Services Program and its IT, finance, contracts, and communications and outreach divisions will see reductions, along with less funding for marketing, SRKW outreach, translation services and other items.
The Habitat Program is also slated for reduced staffing capacity, with fewer dollars for “shared stewardship, regional capacity for land use action review and habitat bio support, reduced management capacity for the restoration division, reduced capacity to assist with divisional administrative support, and reduced science division capacity.”
The Omak Hatchery, used to rear various trout and kokanee stocks, is no stranger to the chopping block, but this time the ax appears to have fallen all the way home. The director said it would be closing and that its use as a district office would require a solution for those who work out of it.
In terms of lands management, there’s “significantly reduced funding for forest thinning and prescribed burn treatments on WDFW-managed lands,” many of which are just above Central Washington communities.
“The pace and scale of forest health treatments on our lands, which enhance ecosystems and species, reduce costly wildfires, and support local communities and economies, will slow significantly,” Susewind wrote.
Funding for roads maintenance and signage, water site and wildlife area maintenance and stewardship, as well as recreational outreach was also cut. That was presaged by a recent news from DNR of campground closures that spared one at a popular Northcentral Washington trout lake.
And the Wildlife Program will reduce costs associated with the various hunting regulation pamphlets, wildlife damage reimbursements, biodiversity grants and other work.
As Susewind wrapped up his memo, he stated that WDFW would continue to watch things at the federal level and seek out ways to work with those partners where they hellp push fish and wildlife conservation forward.
After pointing to free state government services for employees, he reiterated a comittment to supporting staffers “during this challenging time.”
“Take care of yourself and lean on your leadership for support. We will get through this together,” Susewind signed off with.
The situation presents a far broader challenge than just for WDFW alone. The agency takes potshots all day long and from every turkey blind, jet sled, wildlife viewing area and joker such as myself with a keyboard, but allowing it to just be whittled away like this doesn’t serve it, the sportsmen of Washington, the public, the fish, the wildlife, the land or the state.
WDFW recognizes it is not in a great place in terms of allies in Olympia at the moment.
“Our old core at the legislature who we could always count on to be champions and at least get our issues in front of the right folks at the legislature are either not there or they’ve taken on new roles and just aren’t available,” Susewind told the commission back in March.
I don’t know how you recruit new lawmakers to the cause, but I do know there are folks out there who have ideas and should be listened to. But honestly, while Washington likes to think of itself as all green and wild and whatnot, there’s a real disconnect with what that means on the ground. This Washington ultimately might be as bad as that Washington when it comes to showing it gives a sh*t about the natural world.
