WDFW Phone Conference September 24th notes

From Our last phone conference with WDFW

In attendance, on our September 24th phone conference with WDFW were Kelly Susewind (pretty much speechless), Joe Stohr, Interim Director, one other, and Donny Martorello. Donny didn’t seem to be available to provide answers or solutions.

Martorello promised to send us a lot of information. One particular item in question were the coordinates of the depredations in early September so we could determine which allotments the depredations actually occurred- by using a google maps overlay. To date, this promise has yet to be kept. We gave Martorello a two-week lead time to provide the materials he committed to sending us before publishing our opinion- never heard from him.

We questioned WDFW on the call that Travis Fletcher stood up at the March 2018 meeting and said they refuse to discuss our petition before the WAG meeting actually started. We asked why is it that they consider that a “positive manager in action?” We went on to say that during a meeting in September of 2016, Fletcher told us that if WDFW requested these allotments to be closed in the interest of our resources, which means wildlife, the USFS (US Forest Service) could take it into consideration, and most likely close those allotments. Donny Martorello’s response was we don’t have jurisdiction over USFS Grazing Allotments. Our immediate response was “DONNY we didn’t ask if you had jurisdiction, we asked why, to date, have you refused to ask USFS to close these allotments. You are clearly evading the question with a statement that wasn’t in our question.”

We also asked, “Why do you not have Native Americans on the WAG representing our religious beliefs?” Martorello’s response was that Tribes don’t want to be involved. He said there is a separate group called the Interagency Wolf Committee. Our immediate response was “DONNY, again, you are taking our question out of context. Do you mean to be referring to the IWC (Interagency Wolf Committee)? The very group that you as a manager didn’t hold a meeting for since 2015? We pressured you to hold one last fall (if you want to call it a meeting), but you only gave the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) a short time to respond to your phone conference request. Donny our question is why is it there are no Native Americans, not tribes on the WAG?”

Martorello went on to try to make it appear they had a diverse process, to which we asked, “what is it.” He claimed even the Orgs on the WAG had to continually re-apply. We then asked him “why then is it that there never seems to be any change on the WAG- always the same rollover organizations?” We also reminded him that when there were two open seats on the WAG in 2016, he invited us to be a Native American Voice, but when we showed up in numbers he tried to get out of the invitation saying (lying) that wasn’t what he said. However, we reminded Donny that we had 3 sets of ears that heard his verbal invitation to us.

In closing, WDFW only allowed 30 minutes for the call so we were not able to cover all of the outstanding items. Martorello claimed he wanted to continue this phone conference. This time we will request and hour, at the minimum. We will send the extension to the next phone conference once it is set up.

1. We discovered that they claim they have a diversity policy when appointing WAG members, so we as well as the BIA questioned them why then was their only one race it appeared on their so-called diverse WAG? Martorello didnt have an answer per usual.
2. We asked they set aside 2 of the 18 seats for Native Americans. Again Martorello didnt have an answer.
3. We uncovered their true definition of a “Marksman” their definition is a man in a Helicopter shooting wildlife resources with a shotgun, when asked what sort of a load they used, they had no answer, only surmised it to be 00 buck shot. To which they were informed it clearly doesnt provide a clean kill as proven from their past record of loosing wolves shot in the same manner.

Check back for updates, as we get time to make additions. Further scheduling of the next Phone Conference.