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Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife

governmental department

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 9, 2026
Entity authorityQ28373915 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) is a department of the government of the state of Washington, established in 1994.

The WDFW manages over a million acres of land, the bulk of which is generally open to the public, and 475 water access sites. Many of the sites are termed "wildlife areas" and permit hunting during the hunting season, typically in the autumn and early winter for birds, but all year round for coyotes. Due to declining participation, the department has a hunter and angler recruitment, retention and reactivation plan. A Discover Pass is required to park in the wildlife areas.

WDFW is headquartered in Olympia, Washington and has 6 regional offices in Washington. In 2024, the agency collected approximately $59 million and $6.6 million from the sales of recreational and commercial licenses, respectively.

History

The department's history starts with the appointment of a fisheries commissioner in 1890 by Governor of Washington Elisha P. Ferry. The department is overseen by a director appointed by the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission; Kelly Susewind was appointed to the position in June 2018. Hunting and fishing license sales and income from the Discover Pass recreational access fee make up about one-quarter of the department’s budget.

Editorial summary

“Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife” enters the record as governmental department. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Washington, Department and Fish can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1994, 2024, 1890, 2018—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1932-01-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Washington, Department and Fish.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Washington, Department and Fish provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q28373915. VIAF identifies the subject as 151429315. The Library of Congress control number is n95015849. Authority coordinates are 47.037, -122.898. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1994, 2024, 1890 and 2018.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife primary sources, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife archive and Washington research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.