1 thought on “In Washington State, Hunters May No Longer Be “Necessary to Manage Wildlife””

1. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/in-washington-state-hunters-may-no-longer-be-necessary-to-manage-wildlife/ar-AA13Qwad?ocid=winp2sv1plustaskbarhover&cvid=6db230efa92d41fca162aac1d507

   “Colville, Washington is like many bare-knuckle Western towns, with dusty pickups parked at family businesses, government agencies stabilizing the boom-bust ranch-and-timber economy, and a string of fast-food franchises along U.S. Highway 395 that heads north to Canada. It’s the late general season for deer this week in northeast Washington, but hunters don’t see nearly as many elk or pine-ridge whitetails as usual this year.

   With more predators and a new philosophy on wildlife, hunters in Washington could see a decreasing role in management.© John Hafner

   They mostly blame wolves that have moved into this rural corner of Washington over the past decade and the increasing number of cougars that are no longer staying way out in the Colville National Forest. Instead, lions have been coming closer to town, following the scarcity of deer right down to the city limits. Locals cite the ambush of a 9-year-old girl playing hide-and-seek in the town of Fruitland, about 45 miles southwest of Colville, in June as evidence that cougars need to be more aggressively managed by the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife.

   Wolf management is just the beginning of the wildlife war in Washington state.”

   Of course, hunters recite their old mantras of blaming predators for the “perceived” decline in deer and elk decline.

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