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Orcutt to Fish and Wildlife
director:
department needs new focus, direction
Rep. Ed Orcutt
says he made it clear in a meeting today with state Fish and Wildlife
chief Jeff Koenings that his concerns about the performance of the Fish
and Wildlife department go well beyond the high number of starving and
dead elk he recently observed in the Mount St. Helens area.
“Fish and Wildlife’s mismanagement of the Mount St. Helens elk is just
the most visible example of how the department has been unresponsive to
the needs of people and wildlife. From permitting projects like a bridge
over a stream to working with folks whose homes have been flooded to
helping a landowner protect property from wildlife damage, the
department is a hindrance rather than a help far too often,” said
Orcutt, R-Kalama.
Orcutt said today’s meeting in Kelso “wasn’t particularly encouraging.”
“What I heard was that the
department is doing a good job, and if there are problems, they aren’t
the director’s fault. I wonder how he would have felt had he been up
there with me seeing emaciated elk and elk carcasses, knowing his agency
had counted 600 elk on land that could support only 400 animals yet
failed to thin the herd sufficiently before this past winter – and now
he too claims that only 25 elk have died there.”
How the meeting with Koenings even came about is proof that Fish and
Wildlife needs an improved attitude from the top down, noted Orcutt, who
was struck by Koenings’ cavalier, “that’s the way life is” attitude
during their meeting today.
“During the legislative session I and other members of the House
committee on natural resources openly questioned Fish and Wildlife’s
performance, yet we heard nothing from the director. Only after I
recommended to the state Fish and Wildlife Commission that it terminate
Director Koenings did he suddenly become interested in talking directly
with me,” Orcutt explained.
“A similar thing happened with the prime sponsor of the beaver
relocation bill the Legislature passed this session. Only after the
governor vetoed that bill, at Fish and Wildlife’s request, did the
department contact the prime sponsor and offer to relocate a beaver that
would ordinarily be killed.
“If a legislator has to take action – call for the director’s firing, or
pass legislation – to get Fish and Wildlife to respond, how do you
suppose the department treats citizens who aren’t legislators?”
Orcutt traveled to Tumwater on April 8 to testify as a private citizen
before the Fish and Wildlife Commission, describing the large number of
dead and dying elk he observed on an April 5 visit to the state-managed
Mount St. Helens Wildlife Area. The commission voted to increase the
number of elk hunting permits in the area.
Also, Orcutt said, Koenings told him today Fish and Wildlife will put a
new game management plan together before winter.
“Jeff Koenings has had seven years to figure out the game management
situation in our state. He failed to implement a new plan in 2001, so
what new solutions is he going to come up with in the next seven months?
And that’s just long enough to avoid taking any significant action to
help the elk herd I saw earlier this month – or what’s left of it –
before next winter,” Orcutt said. “It looks like process over progress.”
Orcutt said he also was surprised to hear Koenings’ assertion that the
department’s financial house is in order, considering the Legislature
this year directed Fish and Wildlife to come up with a new model for
forecasting revenue for the state’s Wildlife Account.
The Legislature had given Fish and Wildlife similar direction in 1998,
the year before Koenings was hired, because of a budgeting fiasco
involving the Wildlife Account, Orcutt explained. This year the
forecasting requirement was vetoed from the budget by Gov. Christine
Gregoire.
“I’m puzzled why Koenings would say things are much better when the
Legislature didn’t see it that way in its budget. After seven years
under him, the Legislature is still having to manage the department.”
# # #
For more information, contact:
Brendon Wold, Public
Information Officer: (360) 786-7698
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