When oversight is punished, and failure is protected

When the director of a state agency asks the governor to investigate the citizen commission that oversees him, the public should pause. When that request follows years of documented leadership failures, ignored audits, and preventable deaths, the concern should deepen.

That is where Washington now finds itself with the Department of Fish and Wildlife.

In August, Director Kelly Susewind asked Gov. Bob Ferguson to initiate an investigation into members of the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission, citing concerns raised through emails and text messages obtained by a national advocacy organization representing hunting interests. That investigation — now expected to stretch into 2026 — has cast a long shadow over the commission's work, chilling its ability to function as an independent oversight body.

What has not received comparable scrutiny is the leadership record that preceded it.

The public record is clear. In January 2018, the Legislature commissioned the Matrix Consulting Group to conduct an organizational assessment of the Department of Fish and Wildlife. Its findings were stark: deep structural dysfunction, a toxic workplace culture, weak accountability, and leadership failures that put employees and the agency's mission at risk. That report was delivered just months before Kelly Susewind was appointed director.

Three years later, in September 2021, the Washington state auditor released its own independent performance audit, "Assessing the Workplace Culture at the Department of Fish and Wildlife." Based on extensive interviews and surveys of staff, the auditor confirmed what the Matrix report had already identified: widespread bullying, fear of retaliation, breakdowns in communication, and a profound lack of confidence in executive leadership's willingness to correct course.

The auditor's conclusion was explicit: real change would require sustained commitment from leadership. Without it, trust would continue to erode.

That commitment never materialized.

Two years after the auditor's report was released, Dr. Erin Peterson, a 31-year-old fisheries biologist and mother, drowned while conducting solo fieldwork for the department on the Wind River. She lacked adequate safety training and basic protective equipment. Four months later, Mary Valentine, a veteran scientific technician at the agency, drowned under strikingly similar circumstances while working alone at a fish trap on the Duckabush River.

Washington's Department of Labor and Industries later cited the Department of Fish and Wildlife for willful serious safety violations — the most severe category available — meaning management knew the risks and failed to act. More than $230,000 in penalties followed. These were not freak accidents. They were foreseeable outcomes of a leadership culture that failed to respond to repeated warnings.

Yet in the wake of these tragedies, there was no meaningful public reckoning. No demand for accountability from agency leadership. No executive pause to ask why independent audits had gone unheeded. No clear acknowledgment that the system itself had failed the people working within it.

Instead, public attention has shifted toward scrutinizing the commission.

Recent reporting shows that the investigation has already grown from an original $40,000 contract to at least $64,000, with the potential for additional cost if it continues into 2026. These are public dollars — spent not to address documented executive leadership failures, but to examine the conduct of the citizen body charged with oversight.

The origin of the complaints that precipitated this investigation also matters. They stem largely from a national hunting advocacy organization based in Ohio that has aggressively targeted Washington Fish and Wildlife Commissioners since 2022, following the commission's decision to halt spring black bear hunting — a decision widely supported by Washington residents.

Whether one agrees with that policy outcome or not, it is troubling that an out-of-state pressure campaign has helped drive an expensive inquiry, while repeated in-state warnings about leadership failures and employee safety went unaddressed.

This inversion of accountability should concern anyone who cares about effective governance.

The Fish and Wildlife Commission exists to provide independent oversight — to represent the public trust, not to shield executive management from scrutiny. When a director initiates an investigation into his own oversight body while his leadership record remains largely unexamined, the integrity of that system is put at risk.

This is not about emails. It is not about personalities. And it is not about politics. It is about whether Washington is willing to confront documented leadership failure — or continue to protect it.

Accountability must follow the evidence. In this case, the evidence points to years of ignored audits, uncorrected safety hazards, and a workplace culture whose consequences were fatal.

Oversight should not be punished. Whistle-blowers should not be sidelined. And preventable deaths should never be met with silence. ■