A Big Win In The Golden State
April 22, 2022BEARS: A Value Statement
May 8, 2024Last week in Washington was an interesting one to say the least. Some may recall, back in November hunters showed up in numbers during two in person WDFW game commission meetings. They did this to stand up for their hunting heritage and to voice their concerns to the commission on several issues, which is their right to do so. It was great to see both young and old, male and female, hunter and even non hunter (but supportive of hunting) take action and express their stories and love of our heritage and way of life. It was a peaceful gathering, a sea of flame orange and apparently, not everyone liked it.
Fast forward to last week (the first official meeting since then), and now the commission is considering how it interacts with the general public. In fact, a possible “lottery system” is being talked about to randomly “select” people who can speak to the commission via in person or online via zoom. This bothers me for a few reasons. For one, I truly wonder how “transparent” and honest the selection process would be. Certain commissioners have proven themselves, in action, words and associations to be less than friendly to the hunting, trapping and fishing public. A small example of this would be when commissioner Rowland decided it was a good idea, that during a “no public input” commission meeting to take text messages from a Wolf Haven board member friend of hers, which was used to develop the spring bear policy of the commission. This would not have been known if it were not for my public disclosure request asking who she was texting during the meeting. She then apologized in a later meeting claiming ignorance (coming from a lawyer, I doubt she was ignorant of the fact). This is just but one example of less than stellar transparency and ethics when it comes to this commission. Now, would I like to see some reform in how we can interact with the commission? Absolutely I would. It would be great to actually have the chance to have a public dialogue with the commission instead of a 2- or 3-minute monolog which often seems to mainly fall on deaf ears.
Moving on to Friday, which was a full day of public comment and two important agenda items. These include the adoptions of a CR 102 spring bear timber damage permit process, which I am glad to say (albeit surprised) passed in a 7 to 3 vote. This changes the text a little bit to a WAC but more importantly it allows the timber companies who apply for tree damage permits to allocate that tag to another designated hunter of their choosing. While this is not a hunt for the public, it does allow for some sort of spring bear management hunt for private timber companies only. I have my issues with this too for several reasons. One, it didn’t include the general public to be able to put in for the tag allocation (lottery system), it does not address the predation issues by bears in eastern Washington, and it does not address spring bear tree damage on public lands. I understand some of our wants were out of the commissions rule capabilities, but these issues still remain, and it would be great to see them address. I guess my main take away on this is, the commission ok’d this hunt for tree damage, which continues to be an issue, but cancelled the spring bear public hunt because there was no need for a “management” hunt. Sounds to me like spring bears are damaging trees and most likely not just on private timber companies, wouldn’t you agree? But in this environment, a win is a win, so I will take and continue to forge forward with the hopes of addressing these other issues.
The bigger issue which has caused me to lose sleep these last few days in aggravation and disgust, was the passing of the petition submitted by Washington Wildlife First, the Humane Society of the United States and a few other antihunting organizations that would cut bear bag limits from two a year to one a year, cut out the month of August for bear hunting, add a sunset clause calendar year to bear and cougar seasons and remove the month of April out of the late season and include depredation removals as part of the hunting quotas as well as shorten the hid sealing deadline. There is a lot to digest here.
Let’s start at the bag limit reduction. The petition’s claim is that there are unsustainable harvests occurring of both bear and cougar. Both claims were once again refuted by the WDFW bios, showcasing nearly 40 years of combined data that the harvest is well within sustainability levels. You see in 2019 a rule was made that made the two-bag limit of bear uniform throughout Washington. Where before this rule was made you could get one bear on the west side of the cascades, one on the east side of the cascades, or two on the west side of the cascades. You were not allowed two on the east side of the cascades. Even after the rule had passed to allow two bear statewide, that change “did not result in substantive increase in harvest.” If you look at the data, the increase in take over the three-year period since the rule took effect was on average 9 bears, or a total of 38 second bears on average statewide (compared to 27 second bears statewide prior to the rule change). This is for a conservative estimate bear populations of 25,000. Reverting to the one bear tag limit for the east side is “unlikely to change harvest levels” according to the WDFW bios.
Next, let’s talk about cutting the month of August from the hunt (our current season is Aug 1st to Nov 15th). It used to start in some places Aug 15th or even September 1st, depending on the GMU. But for sake of uniformity, it was changed to August 1st. Now for me, I do hunt in August on occasion, but I prefer mid to late September. But that does not mean I do not like to get out, stretch my legs and further enjoy the outdoors with a purpose during the month of August. And I don’t think the removal of this month has anything to do with management and everything to do with limiting hunting opportunities. Hell, half the time hunting areas are closed in August anyway due to fire danger.
The request to add a sunset clause is a sneaky one. This request insinuates that the WDFW does not review the population or harvest levels of these seasons. When, in reality once again confirmed by the WDFW bios, they are reviewed often and annually. Then why would the HSUS want to add a date to this? It is simple. Just like with spring bear in 2021, if they do not vote to extend the date say from 2023 to 2024 the season is gone. Just like that, without reason, without justification, but with purpose all too clear, they can cancel a season because of the failure to pass a text revision.
Finally, including depredation numbers as part of the hunter quota would not only take away hunter opportunities, but would no question cause a public safety issue especially in our NE corner of the state where they are in the midst of not only battling cougar, but wolf predation, grizzly issues and black bear, not even considering coyote. The entire petition is nothing but bad news for hunters.
Commission Smith or Rowland (I forget now, and the tv recording isn’t available yet online) kept praising in amazement that the petition had 50 ‘scientists’ who signed onto it. I’ve got a few questions about that. One, how can we be sure that these scientists are impartial and not HSUS members signing on for political reasons (which I can bet dollars to donuts that’s the case). Two, why blindly accept these unvetted by the WDFW scientists over the vetted, professional biologists of the WDFW and their decades of research? Three, there was talk that there was too much information to process from the WDFW bios to the commission and that certain commissioners like Ragen for one, needed more time (and more info as is his constant desire) to process everything in the WDFW study. So, you would think that if you needed more time to digest information presented you might not want to hold a vote for a petition that can drastically change seasons until you fully grasp everything. I think that is a reasonable train of thought. But reason seems to be missing from much of this commission and it was forced into a vote, which passed 7 to 2, Linville and Anderson being the two no votes. Lastly, the cougar study referenced in the petition was peer reviewed and tossed out as complete garbage by the scientific community.
Commissioner Anderson made a valid point when he said ‘If I am going to jump off a cliff I would like to know where I am going to land’ regarding this travesty of a petition. He didn’t think that voting after a very long day for everyone (past 6pm by the point of the vote) and seemingly not knowing entirely what they were voting on in certainty was a good idea for him personally or the commission in general. Hesitancy was visible on several commissioners, but it seemed that a couple of them just followed the crowd of Rowland, Smith, and Regan for yes voted. Even Chair Baker was hesitant and seemingly torn but lacked the leadership to push the petition for the next day after rest and consideration.
In defense of the WDFW, they advised against accepting the petition for several reasons. Two of the most important reasons were that the bear and cougar populations are robust, stable and growing in many places according to all available data. Additionally, if passed it would require the already overworked staff to abandon their current cougar and bear studies and focus on the rule making process for the petition. Anis Aoude the WDFW bio who gave the cougar and bear presentation showed patience and restraint when being constantly interrupted by Smith and Rowland during this presentation. Not for questions that were constructive, but more of a line of questioning which started off with, “Isn’t it true that…” He pointed out in numerous areas that the petition was flat out lying about stats and trends, WDFW policy and the lack of public input. ‘These are the facts’ he explained to them, and many on the commission didn’t want to hear it.
Near the end of the night, it seemed few on the commission understood what the heck they were voting for and just wanted the night to be over with. I can’t blame them, as I watched the entire day from 8 am and I was exhausted too. But that is little excuse to make such a rushed and massive decision. So the question now is, what is the commission going to do? We won’t know until next year, but they did state that they plan on reviewing cougar season in March of 2024 and bear season late May of 2024 (before the start of those seasons). It doesn’t take a mind reader to decipher their intent. I’ve said it since 2020 and I will say it again, it was not just about spring bear hunting, but all bear hunting (and hunting in general). It is not a pause in the season like they said spring bear would be, but a means to an end. That being said, I will never stop in the fight to be a voice for bears, bear hunters and bear habitat as long as I a voice to give. Won’t you join me?
By Douglas Boze