Wolf Management Meetings Canceled Pt 2
I'm Bob Larson. We told you yesterday, out of fear for the safety of participants, the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife cancelled a series of 14 public forums to take comments on wolf management.I asked Fish and Wildlife's Staci Lehman if there had been any specific threats that led to the cancelations ...
LEHMAN ... "I do not know about that. I know that, you know, some of the ranchers have said that they have had threats, and then some conservationists have said that they have had threats. But, we did work with the FBI and we had been in contact with other law enforcement agencies about having meetings in their communities, but I don't have any specifics."
So instead of public meetings, Lehman says they will online sessions ...
LEHMAN ... "At this point we're just going to do three of the online sessions. Like I said, anybody can log into those so we can have a huge amount of people take part in those."
And, Lehman says there are other options too ...
LEHMAN ... "Like there's a survey on our website right now that's available. And, there's also a spot, like maybe I don't want to take five minutes and fill out a survey, there's a place you can click and just leave a comment and it can be any topic, you know, related to wolves, whatever you want to say. And, then we also have the option of send us a letter. You know, just write down your comment and send it in. So, there's other ways too for people to get their input in. It's not like we don't like the input, we definitely do. We're just looking at different ways to get it."
To find out more, go to www.wdfw.wa.gov and type in the word WOLF into the search bar. The first online session is scheduled for Sept 17 at 6pm.