Until this week, Washington had been a beacon of light in a world growing progressively darker for fish and wildlife. Under the leadership of former Governor Inslee, we were making progress toward an independent wildlife commission that would be more than just a rubber stamp for a regressive department, would prioritize the future of Washington’s fish and wildlife over the demands of consumptive special interests, and would strive to represent the values of all Washingtonians.
We had great hope for Governor Ferguson, maintaining our faith in his leadership even after he summarily fired Commission Vice Chair Dr. Tim Ragen, the former head of the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission, and a preeminent scientist who has spent his career working to recover endangered and threatened marine species. We suspected that Governor Ferguson’s new administration had been misled by NRA-fueled national special interests that had been campaigning to oust Dr. Ragen from the Commission, but we believed the Governor when he said he only wanted to complete his own due diligence on commission candidates. We trusted that in the end, when provided with full information, he would do the right thing and reappoint Dr. Ragen.
Governor Ferguson insisted that he wanted to create a more “balanced” Fish and Wildlife Commission, but instead, he has tilted it away from the values of Washingtonians, and toward the powerful special interests that have long controlled state fish and wildlife policy.
We are not alone in feeling that Governor Ferguson has betrayed our trust. By reversing Governor Inslee’s reappointment of Dr. Ragen, Governor Ferguson ignored the opinions of experts from around the world, who told him that keeping Dr. Ragen on the Commission was one of the last, best hopes for saving our Southern Resident killer whales. He ignored the entreaties of dozens of local, state, and national fish and wildlife organizations, which stressed the importance of keeping Washington moving forward even as the rest of the country was stepping back. He ignored an appeal from the union representing department biologists, which had seen department negligence cause the tragic deaths of two of its members over the past 18 months, and which implored Governor Ferguson to keep Dr. Ragen on the commission as their champion. And he ignored the voices of thousands of Washingtonians, who pleaded with him to put the interests of Washington’s wildlife first.