Winter 2006

Table of Contents

Pacific Townsend's big-eared bat

Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy finalized
By Jeff Koenings, WDFW Director

Over a year ago in this column I told you about our work to develop a Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy (CWCS) that identifies wildlife and habitats in greatest need in our state and helps keep common species common. I asked you then for your input in that strategy development and I thank those of you who took the time to review our draft plans.

Now I’m proud to tell you that we submitted our final CWCS to the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service and its National Advisory Acceptance Team. Our CWCS was accepted, which makes us eligible for new federal grants to implement projects on the ground across the state.

Development of our CWCS paralleled our assessments of nine ecoregions within Washington – Northwest Coast, Puget Trough, North Cascades, West Cascades, East Cascades, Okanogan, Canadian Rocky Mountains, Blue Mountains, and Columbia Plateau.

Those assessments, including establishment of conservation targets and biodiversity mapping, should be completed this year. They will build on our CWCS by zeroing in on the funded actions that show the most promise for long-range, cost-effective conservation.
This dual process has greatly refined the scope and breadth of our efforts. An initial list of thousands of species classified as wildlife in Washington was systematically narrowed to about 700, then down to about 200 species of greatest conservation need and their associated habitats.

Some of these species are in need because their numbers are so low, and others are still fairly common in some locales, but little is known about them.

For example, the white-headed woodpecker of the Ponderosa pine forests east of the Cascades appears to be common but we don’t have population numbers, so our first strategy is to collect data.

The western toad is relatively common in a variety of habitats statewide, but rapid, unexplained declines have resulted in its absence from parts of its historic range; we need to learn more about possible problems with development in the path of their breeding movements.

We know populations of the Pacific Townsend’s big-eared bat have dropped in the species’ low-elevation forested habitat in western Washington, probably because of disturbance, so the plan is to identify roost sites and limit access to them.

You can read through all 200 species reports and strategies on our CWCS webpage Washington's Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy.

Besides completion of our ecoregional assessments and application for federal grants, a few other things need to happen before our initial implementation of these strategies.

The first is development of the state budget. Washington state agencies develop and implement their budgets on a biennial basis. Each agency is expected to prioritize program activities and establish performance measures each biennium. So the first review and possible revision of the CWCS will be timed to coincide with the development of the 2007-09 biennial budget.

Our CWCS development to date has been lead by our Wildlife Diversity Division, but will now also involve other WDFW programs to consider coordination of multi-agency land acquisition through the Interagency Committee for Outdoor Recreation, integration of management of marine and aquatic systems with terrestrial ecosystems, incorporation of identified species and habitat conservation priorities into operational work plans, correlation of identified conservation actions into WDFW’s cost accounting systems, and other dove-tailing.

Finally, implementation of this CWCS cannot be fully accomplished by WDFW alone. We’ll never be adequately funded or staffed to address all the conservation problems and issues addressed. Even with additional funding, wildlife conservation is almost always more effective when accomplished through working partnerships with other public land management agencies, Indian tribes, conservation groups, local governments and the private sector, especially agriculture and forest landowners.

And that’s where you might be involved again. I encourage you to do so if you can, as this promises to be the biggest conservation effort we’ve seen in decades.

For more information on any aspect of the CWCS, please contact Chris Sato at (360) 902-2493 or Joe La-Tourrette at (360) 902-2247.