With regard to sports editor Tim Adams’ July 25 column about Department of Fish & Wildlife “taxes and surcharges,” I feel it’s without merit at best and inaccurate at worse.

I, among a large number of others, volunteer our time in various WDFW programs (I, for one, in the pheasant program) thereby holding state expenditures down. His statement regarding pheasant permit fees this year is incorrect and if he’d done some research before spouting off he’d have found that the Legislature changed the RCW (Revised Code of Washington) this year to eliminate the Small Game License Fee for those just hunting pheasants while changing the fee for the pheasant hunting permit in order to save the Centralia Game Farm from elimination due to severe budget cuts. This action saved the state’s pheasant release progam.

He fails to mention (or doesn’t know) that the fee at a private release site is now $150 for 4 pheasants or 6 chukars so the WDFW fee is a real bargain by any measure. While we’re on the subject of reporting, isn’t it incumbent on a reporter (especially an editor) to check the factual nature of their stories? Maybe not.

Secondly, Mr. Adams is behind the times since he apparently hasn’t realized everything has gone up in price. Has he gone out for dinner lately? By the way, a crab in the market costs about $6 to $7 right now so by simple math the shellfish license at $13.50 seems like a good deal to me for a daily limit of 5 crabs.

If Mr. Adams would like to tackle a subject with some real substance it is that the WDFW Commission continues to ignore the vast disparity between the recreational shellfish (crab and shrimp) quotas and that of commercial interests. In this regard, the WDFW is really shortchanging our recreational community.

Fred Stilwell

Oak Harbor