Originally Posted By: Carcassman
To be a little clear on who is paying WDFW. It is license fees and the DJ/PR taxes. There is some GF from the state, but that amount keeps shrinking. They work for US, not for the State. That is why it grates on folks to grow hatchery fish for others (AK, BC, Tribes) to catch. That is why the push to not buy licenses has some value. Not only does it reduce WDFW staffing levels (probably not a good thing) but it reduces the pool of fish to catch. The Tribes are betting that we will continue to produce fish for them. Given how well the State already funds Education, Infrastructure, Mental Health, Public Safety I am sure the Leg would love to fund salmon hatcheries so the Tribes can fish.


Duly noting your sarcasm, I have been thinking for a while now that organized sport fishing interests should lobby the Legislature to further radically decrease, if not totally eliminate, General Fund money allocation to WDFW. The purpose is to get WDFW's attention, to stop biting the hand that feeds them, to have the Department acknowledge that its business plan is fatally flawed, and needs to be replaced with a Departmental Operations Plan that is skewed toward its constituencies in proportion to the % funding provided by each constituency. In that context, WDFW would spend no more than about 3% of its revenue on managing non-treaty commercial fishing, somewhere between little and none on co-managing - such as it is - treaty fisheries, and around 97% on recreational fishing. I wonder what the probability of getting the Legislature to swing this direction might be. I think only a small number of Legislators are tightly in the hip pocket of commercial fishing, altho some, like Blake, hold key committee positions.