Spring bear public comment is open

[GASoline71]

The state biologist who presented the evidence in favor of spring bear hunting should be insulted by some of the commissioners lack of belief in her work.
There may be another action item on this, this week, from howl. I’ll update if it happens.

Keep up this fight, regardless. And when I say fight I mean for the overall hunting and fishing community not just this issue.

Stephanie Simek has been undermined by certain members of the commission at every single meeting she is a part of.  I don't know how she or Eric Gardner can sit there with a straight face and not pull their hair out...

Gary

[Bullkllr]

This is going to be a marathon boys and girls.  We cannot let up and sit back on our haunches thinking we are done.  It's going to be like this all year every year from here on out.  As long as there are Lorna Smith's, Barbara Bakers, and "sea lion experts" on the commission... we have to keep at it.

Gary

This is my big take away from all this also.

Thanks for doing your part. I too was able to speak, fwiw, but this one may be a forgone conclusion. If we want to maintain any of our rights we all need to buckle up and get ready to fight for it. The tactics they used to cancel spring bear have convinced me to pay attention or else.

I agree 100%.  More and more hunters/sportsmen ARE paying attention.  The consumptive user base has been awakened more now than ever.  Myself... 10 years ago, I couldn't have told you who a single one of the WDFW commissioners were, or who ANY of the biologists were.  Now I know them ALL by name, and know their personalities as well.  In my 54 years on this planet and being born and raised here, I would have never guessed I'd be this involved in having to protect my right to harvest my own meat.

One thing to note, I have a feeling there are going to be more and more bear hunters afield in the fall after all of this. It's kind of like when one of the members of your favorite bands dies, the band's prior records sell like hotcakes.  A wild hunch that, now that bear hunting in WA is in the spotlight, there will be more hunters afield.

The anti's have awakened a sleeping giant.  All we need to do, is stay more focused and stay more organized, and stop all the infighting and divisiveness between user groups. 

Gary

I think that's an actual obligation at this point 

[idahohuntr]

Good points and great effort by many on here. Thinking a bit since Fridays meeting...I'd like to find a way to shift to offense as playing defense at every meeting is getting old.  We need to come up with proposals and things that will force the antis to spend time and energy fighting us so they have less time to keep chipping away at our rights.  Bird watching fees? Making hunter harrassment a felony?  I dont know...just something that would piss them off and we just push it endlessly so the commission doesnt have any time to figure out which hunt to take away next.

[Landowner]

Commissioner Lehmkuhl is the clear swing vote on Spring bear hunting.

Flood him with emails this week.  I suggest keeping the emails short and respectful---but let him know that the ongoing Blue Mountain elk calf mortality study confirms that bears (and cougars) are destroying the elk population.  Of the 125 elk calves that were collared last Spring, only 9 are alive as of yesterday. 

His email address:  John.Lehmkuhl@dfw.wa.gov

[Stein]

Anyone have ready access to black bear population data for Oregon, California, Idaho or other states?  US in general?  It would be good to send in as much data showing increasing numbers as possible.

[idaho guy]

Good points and great effort by many on here. Thinking a bit since Fridays meeting...I'd like to find a way to shift to offense as playing defense at every meeting is getting old.  We need to come up with proposals and things that will force the antis to spend time and energy fighting us so they have less time to keep chipping away at our rights. Bird watching fees? Making hunter harrassment a felony?  I dont know...just something that would piss them off and we just push it endlessly so the commission doesnt have any time to figure out which hunt to take away next.

             





.    Really good idea. I would like to see that on the national level! Definitely need to go on offense as a hunting community

[Chesapeake]

In other states they push to get hunting added to the state constitution ect… but in Washington the government isn’t favorable to that type of thing.
The WDFW push to have spring bear not be a season by season vote seems like a good move, but scary as well. We could end up with it open for years or closed for years.
We live in an unfavorable state for pushing conservative value based legislation. We just plod on hopping the liberals don’t strip too many more of our freedoms.

[harveymarv]

i wrote lehmkuhl an email - he is the swing vote on this, but i'm pessimistic after hearing him talk in the meeting.

[saylean]

https://wdfw.wa.gov/about/commission/meetings/public-testimony

Rumor has it they are now taking public comment from 8-9am this Saturday for spring bear.
If you can, follow the link and sign up! I think we had too many pro hunters the last time and certain commissioners didn’t like it.

[duckmen1]

Sounds to me like they are trying to delay as much as possible to say well we had a high response of people opposed to the spring bear from seattle and we won't listen to science and keep spring bear outlawed. As they did with emotion on bear and cougar hound and baiting. Always is based off emotion.

[Bullkllr]

https://wdfw.wa.gov/about/commission/meetings/public-testimony

Rumor has it they are now taking public comment from 8-9am this Saturday for spring bear.
If you can, follow the link and sign up! I think we had too many pro hunters the last time and certain commissioners didn’t like it.

Does that mean sign-up is opening at 8:00 am Thursday or now?

It would be nice if every commentor was pro-spring bear.


Fwiw, open public input is listed as  Agenda Item #2 (Friday, 3/18, 8:45am) and Agenda Item #13 (Saturday, 3/19, 8:00am).

The spring bear decision is on the agenda for 9:30, Saturday; right before the Blue Mtns. elk herd presentation and assessment.

[saylean]

It’s live now. It’s referring to Thursday of last week

[Stein]

Doesn't look like there is going to be a big bump in Dayton tags looking at that agenda...

[The100Road]

https://wdfw.wa.gov/about/commission/meetings/public-testimony

Rumor has it they are now taking public comment from 8-9am this Saturday for spring bear.
If you can, follow the link and sign up! I think we had too many pro hunters the last time and certain commissioners didn’t like it.

Just signed up.

They mention a few times the question “why don’t we hunt any other animal in the spring” so whoever gets to speak, let’s make sure we answer that question. Thanks!

[Stein]

https://wdfw.wa.gov/about/commission/meetings/public-testimony

Rumor has it they are now taking public comment from 8-9am this Saturday for spring bear.
If you can, follow the link and sign up! I think we had too many pro hunters the last time and certain commissioners didn’t like it.

Just signed up.

They mention a few times the question “why don’t we hunt any other animal in the spring” so whoever gets to speak, let’s make sure we answer that question. Thanks!

We also regularly pursue animals during "breeding season" as was questioned (ignoring spring isn't breeding season for black bears although that should probably be brought up as well).  Elk, deer, turkey, salmon, probably a bunch of other ones.