Just a little something to contemplate on your way to the polls.


Initiative process a poor way to manage

Bob Mottram; News Tribune outdoors writer

It's a tough call, what to do about Initiative 696, the measure to ban most non-Indian commercial netting
in Washington waters.

The measure, the second of its kind in the past five years, was born of decades of anger and frustration
over abuses by the commercial fishing industry. The initiative was written and gathered enough support to
win a place on the general election ballot because, as long as anyone can remember, Washington's
commercial fishing industry has controlled the agency that was supposed to manage it.

For decades, for example, commercial netters demanded - and received - the opportunity to overharvest
wild stocks of Washington salmon in order to net intermingled stocks of hatchery fish to the maximum.
Bottom draggers left underwater clearcuts in Puget Sound. The industry resisted even effective
monitoring, as evidenced by its reaction when the Department of Fish and Wildlife moved a couple of
years ago to put independent observers aboard some of its boats.

When former state Fish and Wildlife director Bern Shanks tried to bring the industry under control, he lost
his job on what many believe were trumped-up charges of misfeasance.

Now the department has a new director, Jeff Koenings, and people are hoping for the best. Koenings
hasn't been in his position long enough for anyone to fairly judge his ability - or his desire - to gain control
of the commercial fishery, so it would not be fair to criticize him. The simple fact is, however, that there is
no evidence that the department is any more in control now of commercial fishing than it ever was.

All that notwithstanding, it's bad policy to try to manage fish and wildlife through the initiative process.
Washington sportsmen no doubt still remember Initiative 655, which passed overwhelmingly in 1996 and
which prohibited the use of dogs in hunting cougars and bears. That initiative was sponsored by
animal-rightists, and it put Washington in the bizarre position of seeing its wildlife policy set by people
whose total wildlife experience probably had been gained at Green Lake.

It very likely won't be the last time that animal-rightists show up with an initiative for Washington voters.

In the current case, whether 696 wins or loses - but especially if it wins - how surprising would it be to
see an initiative coming at you that proposes to eliminate all hook-and-line fishing for salmon? To protect
threatened stocks, of course. Could you imagine it being sponsored by Eastern Washington agricultural
interests? By commercial fishermen? Would sportsmen want to trust a decision like that to the Green
Lake crowd?

After the hound-hunting experience, it's surprising that sportsmen, especially, would turn to the initiative
process for management of fish and wildlife issues.

It's a decision that may come back to bite them.