Sept. 20 – The panel that oversees Washington’s fish and wildlife management meets next week in Spokane.
The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission meets Thursday through Saturday at the Ramada Inn near the airport.
During the three-day meeting, the nine-member panel will discuss a range of topics, including chronic wasting disease and a co-management agreement with the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation.
The committee meets monthly and occasionally travels around the state to hold meetings in different cities. This is the first time the panel has returned to Spokane since 2019.
Committee meetings are scheduled for Thursday, beginning with the Big Tent Committee at 8 a.m. In the afternoon, the Wildlife Committee will discuss wolf-livestock interactions.
The full committee meeting will begin at 8:00 a.m. on Friday and last until Saturday morning.
WDFW kills two wolves from Onion Creek pack
Two wolves from a pack in northeastern Washington have been killed after a series of attacks on livestock.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife announced Friday that two wolves from the Onion Creek pack were killed Thursday.
WDFW Director Kelly Susewind had previously authorized the killing of up to two wolves from the pack a week earlier, in response to the deaths of three calves in Stevens and Pend Oreille counties the previous month.
The wolves killed were a one-year-old female wolf and an adult male.
Before the wolves’ deaths, WDFW believed the Onion Creek pack consisted of at least 10 wolves. It roamed an area northeast of Colville.
The pack was the third targeted by WDFW this year in response to livestock deaths.
In mid-August, WDFW personnel killed a wolf from the Dominion pack. Attempts to kill a wolf from the Leadpoint pack were unsuccessful. Both packs roam parts of Stevens County.
Season extended, trout limit lifted on West Medical Lake
Washington fisheries managers have extended the season and lifted catch limits for trout on West Medical Lake in preparation for their project to rid the lake of goldfish.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife announced Friday that anglers will be allowed to fish the lake through Oct. 13, extending the season by about two weeks.
The decision is an attempt to allow anglers to take home as many trout as possible before WDFW uses rotenone to kill nuisance species such as goldfish.
Rotenone is an EPA-approved fish pesticide that kills all fish species, so if the project goes well, the lake will be bare when it’s over. WDFW plans to restock the lake with trout.
West Medical Lake is known for its large brown and rainbow trout, but WDFW officials have said in recent years that invasive goldfish are crowding out the trout fry and limiting the population’s success.
This is the second time in recent history that WDFW has addressed the lake. The last rotenone project was conducted in 2018.
