Or, look at the flip side; how does funding WDFW make our fishing experience better? I should add that this is specific to anadromous fisheries. WDFW actually does sorta' OK with raising and stocking hatchery resident trout in lakes since the treaty tribes haven't staked any claim to those fish - yet. The hatchery trout stocking program is the one department budget line item that isn't pissing money into a black hole, unlike the preponderance of funds spent raising hatchery salmon that are primarily caught in BC, AK, and WA commercial treaty and non-treaty fisheries. By this I refer to the commercial fishing interests representing less than 2% of the WA population, while the 98% that pays the taxes and buys the licenses that keeps WDFW afloat gets very little from their investment. And now, with treaty tribes directing the Department to close the Stillaguamish R all summer to trout fishing under the guise of "Chinook conservation," but in reality opens the widespread Chinook poaching season when there are no eyes on the river, and closing rivers to recreational angling on days that treaty tribes fish to avoid gear conflicts that the people should be left to work out on their own, and the Skokomish R closure even though the State has a federal court decision describing the boundary of the reservation - a WDFW that works for anglers would leave the river open while the Tribe pursues a further legal remedy if they wish, or close George Adams hatchery if the Tribe won't back off, and on and on. These unnecessary reductions in recreational fishing opportunity are what WDFW does with the millions of dollars we taxpayers and license buyers provide them. We get the fishing that the treaty tribes of PS decide we can have. How would it be better if WDFW were defunded?

The fishing in WA that I rely on exists pretty much outside the efforts of WDFW. And my non-resident fishing licenses for OR, MT, ID, and BC yield greater benefits per dollar spent than my resident WA license does by a country mile. Tell me again why we should fund WDFW . . .