Sep. 20—The panel that oversees the management of Washington’s fish and wildlife will be in Spokane next week.
The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission will meet Thursday through Saturday at the Ramada Inn near the airport.
Over the three-day meeting, the nine-member panel will discuss a variety of issues, including chronic wasting disease and a co-management agreement with the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation.
The commission meets every month and occasionally travels around the state to hold meetings in different cities. This is the panel’s first return to Spokane since 2019.
Committee meetings are planned for Thursday, starting with the commission’s Big Tent committee at 8 a.m. In the afternoon, the wildlife committee will discuss wolf-livestock interactions.
The full commission meeting begins at 8 a.m. Friday and runs into Saturday morning.
WDFW kills two wolves from Onion Creek pack
Two wolves from a pack in northeast 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 on Thursday.
WDFW Director Kelly Susewind approved 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 in the previous month.
The wolves killed were a yearling female and an adult male.
Prior to the wolves’ deaths, WDFW believed the Onion Creek pack consisted of at least 10 wolves. It roams a territory northeast of Colville.
The pack was the third that WDFW had targeted this year in response to livestock deaths.
In mid-August, WDFW staff killed one 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 nixed on West Medical Lake
Washington fisheries managers have extended the season and removed harvest limits for trout on West Medical Lake ahead of its project to rid the lake of goldfish.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife announced Friday that anglers will be able to fish the lake until Oct. 13, an extension of the season by about two weeks.
The decision is an effort to allow anglers to take home as many trout as possible before WDFW uses rotenone to kill nuisance species like goldfish.
Rotenone is an EPA-approved piscicide that kills all fish species, so if the project goes well, the lake will be barren when its over. WDFW plans to restock the lake with trout.
West Medical Lake has been known to kick out big brown and rainbow trout, but WDFW officials in recent years have said that invasive goldfish are outcompeting trout fry and limiting the population’s success.
It will be the second time in recent history that WDFW has treated the lake. The last rotenone project was conducted in 2018.
