Published 9:15 am Thursday, February 24, 2022
OLYMPIA — A bill to stop Klickitat County Sheriff Bob Songer from chasing and killing cougars with dogs died Wednesday in the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee.
Committee Chairman Mike Chapman, D-Sequim, adjourned the committee’s last meeting of the session without bringing the bill up for a vote, ending its chances of reaching the House floor. The bill had passed the Senate.
Chapman said after the meeting that the bill didn’t have enough votes to pass his Democratic-controlled committee. He said he was one of the Democrats with reservations.
“This was a piece of legislation aimed at one person in the state. I’m not really comfortable with passing legislation aimed at one person,” he said.
The bill’s demise was not an endorsement of Songer’s program, said Chapman, who noted that Songer plans to retire when his term expires at the end of the year. “I’m hoping the community picks a different style of leadership,” he said.
Songer angered the Department of Fish and Wildlife and cougar advocates by deputizing hound handlers in 2019 to pursue cougars in his south-central Washington county.
Songer cited the danger of cougars in populated areas and also their threat to livestock. The sheriff said Wednesday that he will continue the program as it is until he leaves office.
“I’m very pleased the bill died and that we’re still operating under current law,” he said. “I know there are people who don’t like what we’re doing, and they have a right to their opinion, but they’re not responsible for public safety.”
Voters banned sportsmen from hunting cougars with dogs in 1996. After Songer’s program withstood a lawsuit last year by environmental groups, Fish and Wildlife supported extending the ban to county sheriffs.
No sheriff has emulated Songer’s program by keeping a roster of hound handlers, though sheriffs in Stevens and Ferry counties share a wildlife deputy who pursues cougars if state wildlife officers are unavailable.
Republican Rep. Joel Kretz, who represents those two counties, said Fish and Wildlife shouldn’t have escalated its dispute with Songer into supporting a bill that would have undermined predator control in his district.
“It just shocks me the department was backing this,” he said. “It’s ludicrous.”
Fish and Wildlife maintains it should be the lead agency responding to cougars, as well as bears and bobcats.
“While Senate Bill 5613 would have accomplished this, we understood that this was a statewide solution to a localized issue,” the department said in a statement.
Senate Democrats softened the original proposal, allowing sheriffs to pursue cougars with dogs if they had permission from Fish and Wildlife. Songer derisively called it the “Mother, May I? Act.”
Stevens County Sheriff Brad Manke testified to the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee that the Senate-passed bill would hinder his office from protecting the public and property.
In some cases, the sheriff’s office can’t wait for Fish and Wildlife’s approval, he said.
Fish and Wildlife accused Songer of being too eager to release hounds, an accusation that Songer denied.
Fish and Wildlife acknowledged that its officers were killing cougars in Klickitat County at about the same rate before Songer announced he was taking the lead.
