WA Fish and Wildlife Commission meets this week

The panel that oversees the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife will meet this week, the first such gathering since one of its members sued the top administrators at the agency it oversees.

The nine-member Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission will hold its committee meetings Thursday and will gather as a full commission on Friday and Saturday.

None of the commission's agenda items directly mention the lawsuit Commissioner Lorna Smith and the nonprofit Washington Wildlife First filed against WDFW director Kelly Susewind and deputy director Amy Windrope.

But there are two executive sessions scheduled for the start and end of their Friday meeting. Both will be closed to the public.

Such sessions are reserved for discussing items like litigation or personnel issues, and the agenda only includes vague descriptions of what might be discussed. The first is for discussing something with the agency's legal counsel - such as enforcement actions or litigation.

The second, set to happen immediately after the commission hears an update on wolf numbers, is meant to let commissioners "evaluate the qualifications of an applicant for public employment or to review the performance of a public employee."

Commission Chair Jim Anderson, of Pierce County, declined to offer more detail about what would be discussed.

Executive sessions aren't uncommon for the commission, which gets the final say on a vast array of fish and wildlife issues and has the power to hire or fire the WDFW director. This will be the third consecutive month that commissioners close a portion of their meeting to the public.

Anderson said commissioners don't make any decisions during that time, and that they're only allowed to use the closed portion of the meeting to discuss litigation or personnel issues.

The session set for Friday morning is unusual in its timing. Recent executive sessions have come at the end of the Friday or Saturday meetings. This Friday's meeting will begin with one.

Two lawsuits involving either the commission or WDFW have been filed since the last meeting. Washington Wildlife First sued the agency over the recently approved game management plan in March, arguing the plan's environmental impacts didn't receive enough scrutiny.

The other suit is the one Smith, Washington Wildlife First and its director Claire Loebs Davis filed two weeks ago. The complaint alleges that Susewind and Windrope used state resources to "fabricate and circulate false, misleading, defamatory, and inflammatory allegations to discredit, silence, and retaliate against individuals who publicly criticized them."

They filed the lawsuit after a May 2025 WDFW memo was released to the public by the Sportsmen's Alliance and the Conservation Coalition of Washington.

In the memo, which was prepared at Susewind's request, WDFW criminal justice liaison Thomas Knoll wrote that an analysis of public records showed Smith and her fellow commissioner Melanie Rowland "present serious risks to WDFW" by failing to follow the commission's rules. Knoll also raised concerns about their interactions with Davis and Washington Wildlife First, writing that it appeared the trio "have each other on speed dial."

The lawsuit, which Rowland is not a part of, argues the memo is "rife with false, misleading, inflammatory, and defamatory allegations," and it treats it as part of a series of actions by Susewind and Windrope meant to discredit and silence Smith, Davis and Washington Wildlife First - all of whom are frequent and vocal critics of WDFW's top officials.

The suit also argues the memo was designed to help Susewind convince Gov. Bob Ferguson to order an investigation into commissioners' conduct. That investigation began in August.

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