BILL REQ. #:  H-1779.1 

READ FIRST TIME 02/07/07.   

     AN ACT Relating to providing the fish and wildlife commission with independent biological information; and creating a new section.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION.  Sec. 1   (1) The fish and wildlife commission shall conduct a pilot project designed to provide biological information directly to the commission from a source independent from the department of fish and wildlife.
     (2) In implementing the pilot project required by this section, the fish and wildlife commission shall contract with private, independent wildlife biologists to prepare an assessment of current elk and deer resource management and recommend future management plans for elk and deer. The commission shall execute separate contracts for an independent review of deer and elk management on the area encompassing the habitat of two individual elk herds a year for five years, beginning with the Mt. St. Helen's elk herd and the Colockum elk herd, and continuing with two different herds each year.
     (3) The department of fish and wildlife shall, in a timely matter, grant access to any area or provide any information requested by the wildlife biologists that contract with the fish and wildlife commission under this section. However, the director of the department of fish and wildlife and other department employees shall have no additional contact with the biologists.
     (4) The results of the initial assessments and plans developed under this section by the contract wildlife biologists shall be reported directly to the fish and wildlife commission by October 31, 2008, with each additional year's information reporting at the end of that year.
     (5) Upon the completion of the pilot project, the chair of the fish and wildlife commission shall present a report to the appropriate committees of the legislature on the differences between the management recommendations made by the independent biologists as compared to recommendations made by employees of the department of fish and wildlife.