Free: Contests & Raffles.
The last commission meeting not enough people showed up. The room was empty and we left the door open. I was there with my two girls and we spoke to try to change the season as little as possible. They were taking comments after the meeting because there was so many people that wanted to virtual testify at the meeting but not enough time. That is a note to everyone here. From now on we have to show up in person and virtually if not. These comments get sorted out separate and can really make a difference.The delay is they are taking all these comments into account. They are actually still taking comments right this minute. At least HOWL is still sponsoring comments until 7/19. https://www.howlforwildlife.org/wa_wolf_conservation?utm_campaign=july_15_24&utm_medium=email&utm_source=howlforwildlifeThey went from there 6 original stipulations to 5 and now are set at about 4. One is that the cougar season will get moved to Aug 1st so really pay attention because you could be hunting cougars in two weeks.This was a discussed trade that to keep in line with license year etc if they want to pull the season back to March 31st the should open up the season a month earlier... trade april for august. They had some data that showed the take was so low in April and likely in August that this would be a reasonable tradeoff. Instead of loosing April all together.This is likely bad for the 13-20 rule though I'm not sure. I would be interested to see when the most non-hunter take is... because say we are at 11% before August and it opens in august and 1 cat dies going over 13% the season is closed. Alternatively the one cat dies and we are at 14% now at the start of September we could take 2-3 cats before the unit would close. So I'm going to say there could be a net wash there?What's taking so long is they made a very prescriptive rule change so they need to calculate all the new quotas. They also need to retabulate the total take because that is going to be a factor now. Then they can tell us I'm guessing next Wednesday the season will open in a week on Aug 1st, here is the new quotas, here are the units chasing 13% and the ones chasing 20%, here are the ones that are already closed and wont have a season at all this year.
They just passed the CR102 on cougar season. There was an amendment that keeps the 20% clause (if 13% is reached before Sept 1st, the cap bumps up to 20%) and initiates new rule making for next year. We do get to hunt cougars this year but I haven’t read the full law yet. The commission is coming back from break at 10:15am.https://tvw.org/video/washington-fish-and-wildlife-commission-2024071053/?eventID=2024071053And here is the law info: https://wdfw.wa.gov/about/regulations/development/cougar-hunting-seasonsWe lost April cougar hunting.The season now closes when the unit reaches 13% of their population “estimate”, and that includes all known human caused mortality including tribal harvest (that they know about). If anyone has any tribal contacts please encourage them to withhold all cougar harvest data from WDFW.
If you see a cougar.......
