SPOKANE — Like many, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists are working from home.
But for women and men who, by and large, became biologists because they’d rather tromp through the woods than sit at a desk, the shutdown represents a substantial disruption in their day-to-day work.
That means some important field work won’t be completed this spring, either delayed until later in the year or canceled.
At the same time, the forced desk work offers its benefits.
“This is a great opportunity for us to do some synthetic work across disciplines, across regions, across species,” WDFW deputy director Amy Windrope said in a recent interview. “So, I’m hoping that’s a positive that comes out of this.”
Regional biologists echoed Windrope.
“We were just about to start some pretty important field work,” said Danny Garrett, the agency’s lead warmwater fish biologist in Region 1.
That included taking inventory of pike populations on Lake Roosevelt and some work in Box Canyon.
“So, that’s been pushed back,” he said.
The silver lining? Garrett and other fish biologists have the time to dive into several long-term data sets, including 18 years’ worth of survey data looking at walleye on Lake Roosevelt.
“Walleye are really tricky to manage because they have really big year classes and small year classes,” he said. “You really can’t tell what’s going on unless you look at the long-term data set.”
Anglers won’t notice any short-term impacts from this kind of analysis, but work done now may impact seasons and rules five or 10 years from now, Garrett said.
“A lot of the regulations we have now are directly from the work we did in stock assessment on warm water,” he said.
The COVID-19 closures came at a relatively good time for terrestrial biologists in Region 1, said Annemarie Prince, northeast district wildlife biologist.
“This is our catch-up time of year anyways with snow melting out,” she said.
Some work will be delayed, including checking bear hair snare traps, golden eagle surveys and some scheduled bat work. The bulk of that work, however, doesn’t start until later in the spring. If the shutdowns stretch onward, Prince said that kind of research will have to be canceled.
Instead, Prince said she will catch up on work such as radio collar data that she “never had a chance to analyze or look into.”
In the same way, Washington’s wolf managers and biologists are taking the unexpected interruption of normal work to do “deep dives” into the literature.
“This is a good time to do it,” WDFW wolf coordinator Julia Smith said. “Wolves are one of the most heavily studied creatures out there.”
Much of the wolf work has been deemed essential under a U.S. Department of Agriculture exemption, she said. Investigating wolf attacks on livestock, range riding and lethal removal are all considered essential activities, but other field work has been interrupted.
Similarly, most hatchery work is continuing, as is salmon marking, WDFW Director Kelly Susewind said.
In addition to catching up on backlogged data, the coronavirus closures have forced WDFW to embrace new technology.
“We have moved basically 1,800 people to remote telework,” Windrope said. “We have exponentially improved our technology and use of technology statewide.”
