Washington Wildlife First

Direct Participation in Current Issues: We use our scientific expertise to serve as watchdogs over WDFW, monitoring its activities, investigating problems, and responding to issues. We attend every meeting and committee meeting of the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission, following current issues, providing frequent testimony, and submitting letters on a wide variety of topics. We submit formal comments informed by science on issues ranging from the Game Management Plan to the State Wildlife Action Plan to hatchery policies. We coordinate with our coalition of fish and wildlife advocacy groups to join forces on issues of importance, focusing our combined resources to achieve better outcomes for fish and wildlife.

Rulemaking, Litigation, and Other Legal Actions: We use our legal expertise to employ a range of legal strategies to hold WDFW accountable as a public trustee. We draft rulemaking petitions, including to protect fish species from overexploitation and stop WDFW from shooting state-endangered gray wolves on public lands at the behest of the beef industry. When other strategies fail, we file litigation to hold WDFW accountable to the law, including challenges to WDFW's arbitrary and capricious decisions to kill wolves, its frequent violations of the State Environmental Policy Act, and its disregard for the Public Records Act.