Bay Wolf:

I was there until about 11, when I realized my parking permission had expired. I was going to register to comment, but it was pretty clear the focus of today's comments was going to be the unfortunate euthanasia of the deer and elk from For Heaven's Sake. That issue is very emotionally charged, and my opinion is that the rest of today's comments, some of which were really well done, are likely to get lost in the shuffle.

Furthermore, after listening to the first part of the agenda discussions, I found my thoughts all pointed back to what I believe is the only thing that will improve or even preserve the fishing we have, which is reducing the impact of open ocean fisheries. An honest assessment of every fish and wildlife issue discussed today (save for the slaughter at the rehab facility) can only lead to the same, ultimate cause: we're killing too many salmon, of every origin, in the open ocean. Think about it. Why don't southern resident orcas have enough food? Why is the healthy population of seals and sea lions having an unsustainable impact on salmon and steelhead populations? Why did the North of Falcon process finally break completely in 2016? Why are our opportunities to fish disappearing, with no real hope for change in sight? Why isn't the tremendous and growing investment we're making in habitat improvements yielding more fish?

The answer is not apathy. The ultimate, honest answer to all these questions, regardless of the myriad other, contributing factors, is that we (by "we," I mean a bunch of people who don't live here calling the shots on salmon seasons) simply aren't allowing enough WASHINGTON salmon to return to WASHINGTON waters. Nothing that happens in Commission or North of Falcon meetings will change that, because none of the participants in those meetings has ANY influence over NOAA, which is ultimately responsible for approving fisheries with ESA components, which includes very nearly all our local saltwater fisheries.

As much as we agree that WDFW and the Tribes are hanging us out to dry, the sad truth is that they are only dividing up the crumbs left over after the perennial ocean slaughter, and that process was destined to break down as soon as there weren't enough fish returning to let everyone fish.

Only the Feds can fix this. That's where all our effort needs to be focused.

All that said, a few takeaways from the meeting (or what I saw):

Unsworth appears to be not long for his job. He is getting blasted (and rightfully so) from all sides, including the commissioners, who were none too pleased with the fact they hadn't had a review of the chinook management plan before WDFW announced it Friday. One gentleman (who's been involved in this stuff forever but whose name escapes me) more or less pointed his finger at Unsworth when he announced to the room that he is pushing legislation (with lots of good momentum) to implement a zero tolerance policy on public employees lying to the public, the Legislature, etc., with the penalty for violation being termination of employment. Sounds reasonable to me....

The way WDFW treated the folks and animals at that rehab facility was clearly out of line and lacking in due process. Honestly, if they treated poachers as harshly, we probably wouldn't have so much poaching. Also, while I hated learning about the decision to euthanize those critters (right or wrong), I was a little disappointed that issue was so much the focus of the public comment period, although I wasn't surprised. I think it's a shame that people get instantly up in arms when cute, fuzzy mammals get mistreated, yet most don't seem to give two $hits that the salmon so iconic to our heritage and so critical to our ecosystems are edging toward extinction. Guess it's harder to hug a cold, slimy fish.... Anyway, we need to get the people running and supporting these wildlife rehab places on our side, because they show up in numbers and make sure they get heard. I really think if more of the non-fishing public understood how extremely we exploit the resource that is salmon, they would be all over demanding change.

There was talk during Unsworth's report about the problem of bears destroying timber. I was extremely tempted to shout something about how the timber companies ought to start locking all the bears out of their leases, selling keys to only a few, each of whom has promised not to do what bears do (de-bark trees). One of the commissioners made a point of clarifying that timber loss due to bears is a bigger problem for small, private timber growers, for whom five acres of trees is a much more significant loss than it is for a big company. (I'd hazard a guess that euthanizing these bears would not be allowed without "demand" from those big companies, but I digress.)

The one comment that really stuck with me, though I'm not sure it's what the speaker most wanted me to remember, came from a gal addressing WDFW when she said that (paraphrasing), whether it's innocent animals at a rehab facility, bears doing what bears do, or whatever else, all WDFW seems interested in doing is killing. Ouch.