SB 5846 Concerning beaver ecosystem management

[JakeLand]

How would this work out if said home owner hires me to get rid of the beaver and I put in for a permit to trap them ? Do they issue me a permit or do they try and go in to trap them themselves? If the homeowner doesn’t want them to be part of it and only me how will this work out?

[Special T]

I think this is a Trojan horse of some nature. Van DeWege is a big time anti hunter. They have been relocating beavers to the mountains and nearly all are eaten. Mostly by cougars. I think more beavers in the high country could have benefits for everyone, buy I doubt this program will do more than feed expensive beavers to cats.

[Humptulips]

How would this work out if said home owner hires me to get rid of the beaver and I put in for a permit to trap them ? Do they issue me a permit or do they try and go in to trap them themselves? If the homeowner doesn’t want them to be part of it and only me how will this work out?

It's hard to say. The Department would have to implement it but I would doubt the Department is going to get into trapping. That would likely be left to WCOs. The number of people the fiscal note mentions would not be enough to have Department personnel do the trapping. I would think there will be more oversight of complaint trapping. These people they will be hiring, have to connect with landowners with complaints somehow to do anything mentioned in the bill. There are not enough of them to actually go out in the field much so I bet most are in the office shuffling papers, issuing permits, that sort of thing but they might have some field people kind of like they do with bear. They would probably be just giving advise and guidance on living with beaver and leave any trapping to a WCO.

[UrbanTrapper]

So the relocators are writing their own ticket and vying for a monopoly on the nuisance beaver trapping, eh ?  That other $3 million will already be in the budget (eventually) and their full-time WDFW allies in the WDFW Nuisance Beaver Department THEY created will be grateful and make sure the relocators get their funding from the State every year without really having to apply for it. The grants they subsist on now must be a more uncertain source of funds and/or no fun to apply for. I don't like where this is going.

[Cougartail]

Million dollar beavers so weirdos can feel like they are helping nature. I worked on a job removing beavers so trees could grow along a stream to shade and cool the water. It was to save the salmon.

Braindead dimwits.  Nature rarely gets the balance right. Humans never do.

Cage trapping has allowed beavers to over populate. They don't need more help doing so.

[Humptulips]

After watching the hearing, I feel like this is going to pass. Why? The Department and the tribes testified in favor of the bill. It's being talked up as a way to restore salmon and it seems this State will spend any amount of money on salmon recovery even if there is no assurance it will help. There are a lot of parts to the bill that are wide open for interpretation and the Department will be the ones doing that. I have not had the chance to talk to anyone about all that yet.
It sure looks like a grift on the part of these beaver relocators. They milked the private grant money all they could so now it is the States turn to give handouts.

[JakeLand]

Will this in anyway effect us fur trapping ? And how about us doing nuicance work ?

[Tbar]

After watching the hearing, I feel like this is going to pass. Why? The Department and the tribes testified in favor of the bill. It's being talked up as a way to restore salmon and it seems this State will spend any amount of money on salmon recovery even if there is no assurance it will help. There are a lot of parts to the bill that are wide open for interpretation and the Department will be the ones doing that. I have not had the chance to talk to anyone about all that yet.
It sure looks like a grift on the part of these beaver relocators. They milked the private grant money all they could so now it is the States turn to give handouts.

Have you worked on spatial definitions and temporal limits?

[Humptulips]

After watching the hearing, I feel like this is going to pass. Why? The Department and the tribes testified in favor of the bill. It's being talked up as a way to restore salmon and it seems this State will spend any amount of money on salmon recovery even if there is no assurance it will help. There are a lot of parts to the bill that are wide open for interpretation and the Department will be the ones doing that. I have not had the chance to talk to anyone about all that yet.
It sure looks like a grift on the part of these beaver relocators. They milked the private grant money all they could so now it is the States turn to give handouts.

Have you worked on spatial definitions and temporal limits?

I was in talks during the summer and fall with the Department about the Beaver relocation pilot project which should be coming up this Spring as a WAC. (Thay may well change with this bill) The Methow Beaver Project was also at those talks and we had an agreement that there would be no closures but that there would be signage at release locations and that we would urge trappers to practice restraint and not trap beaver at these locations. Alexa from MBP was in agreement with this. Now this bill seems to throw all those talks out the window and Alexa seemed to backtrack on everything she had committed to in her testimony.
I shall have to see what the Department thinks about limits now. I had made some proposals in that vein, but we stopped talking about it when it was agreed to rely on trappers voluntary restraint.

[Humptulips]

Will this in anyway effect us fur trapping ? And how about us doing nuicance work ?

If you read the bill, it mentions working with Recreational Beaver trappers so based on that it should not affect fur trapping. Lorna Smith was there to give her wholehearted support for the bill so I can't say the Commission won't do something separately. I do not think there is support within the agency to do anything on beaver that would affect fur trappers. The Commission doesn't always listen to them though as you well know.
Nuisance work? Honestly, I can't see how this works without affecting WCOs. More paperwork, more delays and you are going to lose a few jobs. It will be interesting to see how they split up the grant money. They could spend a lot of it on cost sharing mitigation programs and a WCO could get in on some of that plus that takes money away from relocations.
Another thing the bill directs the Department to identify suitable locations to release beaver. I have a bunch of questions about that.

[DishBogget]

Will this in anyway effect us fur trapping ? And how about us doing nuicance work ?

Lorna Smith is behind it so I think you can imagine where it’ll end up


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[HUNTIN4SIX]

Didn't want to comment on this until I read it.  Holy @#$%  this bill is bad.  Nothing to do with beavers in my opinion.  Read between the lines folks...this has every scary buzz word our agency likes to use indicating something in the bill is way big than beavers.  They are using beavers as a means to get to the place they want to.  Kinda like the wolf situation.  This is nefariously deceptive.    

[JakeLand]

Didn't want to comment on this until I read it.  Holy @#$%  this bill is bad.  Nothing to do with beavers in my opinion.  Read between the lines folks...this has every scary buzz word our agency likes to use indicating something in the bill is way big than beavers.  They are using beavers as a means to get to the place they want to.  Kinda like the wolf situation.  This is nefariously deceptive.    

their agenda is very apparent

[Humptulips]

I spoke to some people in the Department and nobody knows how this works if it passes. Probably they would at first hire some seasonal employees to walk streams and identify sites for beaver relocation. Beyond that, everything is on the table as the bill is so open to interpretation. The first year of it would probably be taken up just defining things.
A lot of this would probably be taken into the habitat part of DFW. I don't know anyone there, yet.

I did ask about the relocator guy that bragged about releasing 6 beaver this January. That is not supposed to happen, no beaver are supposed to be relocated in the winter. I was told that was a Tulalip release and they don't have to get permission from the State. From my conversations I think Alexa Whipple from MBP may not have burned some bridges within the agency but she undermined them.

[DishBogget]

I’m sure the commission will be more than happy to tell the department how to implement it.


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