As others have said, pretty much all state employees (not just WDFW) have to take furlough one day a week and then one or two days a month starting August for the rest of the year. It is affecting response times for customer service oriented issues. I have several friends who work for state agencies (DNR, Ecology, WDFW) and they said response times for questions directed at the bios and other science folk shouldn’t be too affected because a lot of those guys can be reached on a personal phone numbers or check their email over the weekend.
Furthermore, the furlough is definitely not a response to COViD by WDFW as someone mentioned. It’s a mandated multi-agency furlough by the governor as a means of addressing budget shortfalls. (Sucks for our state employees...is Inslee gonna take that pay cut too?).
