We thus stand with WDFW’s biologists, enforcement officers, conflict specialists, and other employees, and call on the Fish and Wildlife Commissioners to take immediate action to correct the pervasive problems within the agency that they are charged with supervising, starting with a careful look at entrenched agency management that has allowed these problems to persist.

Some highlights from the auditor’s report:

• One in ten WDFW employees has directly witnessed a WDFW employee or supervisor commit a legal or ethical violation in the past year.

• More than 10% experienced retaliatory behavior as a result of reporting unethical or illegal behavior, challenging a supervisor, or even talking to the auditors.

• More than two dozen employees interviewed by the auditors describe decisions that WDFW had made on hot-button issues based on purely political considerations, ignoring the Department’s own research and expert recommendations.

• Less than half of the employees believe that managers are held accountable when they behave inappropriately.

• More than 20% of WDFW employees have been the victim of workplace bullying, including yelling, demeaning comments or intimidation in the last year. 30% had witnessed it happening to someone else.

• One-fourth of the employees the auditors interviewed reported instances of gender discrimination at the Department, where a paltry 33% of the workforce are women.

• Less than half of WDFW employees have a positive view of WDFW’s workplace culture.

State auditors began their investigation more than two years ago, in response to concerns voiced by legislators and WDFW employees about WDFW’s workplace culture. They released their report after more than a year of delay, which included several months of pushback from Department management following its review of the initial draft. The report includes results from a survey of more than 800 employees, and individual or group interviews with 222 employees.

The auditor’s report barely scratches the surface of the pervasive problems at WDFW, and Washington Wildlife First will be reporting in detail on many of these issues in the coming weeks and days, using information we have been gathering over the past year. But the report did include significant findings in several areas.

Pervasive Fear of Retaliation

• 11% of survey respondents reported experiencing retaliatory behavior.

In individual and group interviews, employees reported that the Department had retaliated against them for reporting inappropriate or unethical behavior, speaking up to a supervisor, providing negative feedback about a supervisor or the agency, and even for speaking to the auditors during the course of the audit.

The reported retaliation includes employees receiving official letters of reprimand, having their duties taken away or reduced, suddenly receiving bad evaluations that were out of character, and being fired or forced out of the agency.

Said one employee to the auditors:

“You just don’t report stuff … that’s signing your death warrant.”

Numerous WDFW employees have told the staff and board of Washington Wildlife First that they have been punished for raising internal concerns and would face certain retaliation for speaking publicly about any Department problems. These employees say that when people report serious issues and concerns, management’s first response is often not to try to resolve the problem—but to punish the people who reported it

.In a recent example, dozens of WDFW employees wrote anonymous letters to the Fish and Wildlife Commission at the beginning of the year to ask the Commissioners for help in fixing an agency “in crisis”—identifying a wide range of problems including sexual harassment and abuse, the knowing disregard for science and data, and the abuse of power.

Commissioners responded with a form letter indicating they would “refrain from intervening in the operation of the Department” and their “intention was to support the Director in increasing accountability around HR investigations.”

Management’s response? An edict banning all employees from communicating with the Commission, and a task force dedicated to identifying the people who sent the letters.

Management Disregard of Science

• More than two dozen employees reported in interviews that WDFW makes decisions on sensitive issues based on purely political considerations, in contravention of WDFW’s own research and expert recommendations.

Employees told the auditor that these decisions related to issues such as the management of wolves, elk, orca, and fisheries. Washington Wildlife First has numerous public documents showing WDFW has also flouted its own science and data when managing bear and cougar populations, and often ignores or misrepresents the science, data, and recommendations of its own experts

.As employees reported to the auditor:

“You see this with the [species] meetings. Senior staff feel they get to decide what information is important to incorporate. It blows my mind that it’s your job to provide this information, but they don’t use it, they throw it away. And that is pervasive.”

“How much are you guys [executive management] talking to the people who are collecting data you’re basing this on?… It feels like there is a lot of political decisions that happen that are made without a whole lot of attention paid to the data that should be going into those decisions…”

The auditor’s report categorizes this concern as largely a communications problem, indicating that these complaints “suggest that DFW could put greater effort into consistently distributing clear and timely information about agency decisions – along with feedback about the research considered during decision-making – to those employees who need or want it.”

From a “workplace culture” standpoint, that take may be understandable. But it ignores how management’s disregard for science harms agency credibility, erodes its legitimacy, and cripples its ability to responsibly manage the state’s fish and wildlife populations.

These are the primary concerns of Washington Wildlife First, which we will be exploring in much greater detail in coming weeks.