Help make trails safer.

We need your help for our Safer Trails Campaign to succeed.

On January 29, WTA held its Hiker Lobby Day and forty-five hiker activists gathered in Olympia to urge our legislators to support Senate Bill 5559. This bill sponsored by Senator Kohl-Welles, sets the minimum age at which a young person can hunt unaccompanied by an adult at 16.  The legislation defines an adult as over the age of 18, and having possessed a hunting license for the prior three years. 

Our activists laid some good groundwork on lobby day and WTA has followed up by testifying in strong support of this legislation in front of the Senate Natural Resources, Oceans and Recreation Committee. 

SB 5559 is currently waiting for a vote in the Senate Committee. Now it is time to move this legislation to the floor.  Please call your state Senator and tell them that you support the quick passage of SB 5559.  This is particularly important if your Senator is on the Natural Resources Committee. 

Here are the Committee Members:

Ken Jacobsen     Chair              (360) 786-7690
Kevin Ranker      Vice Chair       (360) 786-7678
Bob Morton                             (360) 786-7612
Karen Fraser                            (360) 786-7642
James Hargrove                        (360) 786-7646
Brian Hatfield                           (360) 786-7636
Val Stevens                              (360) 786-7676
Dan Swecker                            (360) 786-7638

What can you do:

Please call your state Senator and tell that you support the quick passage of

SB 5559.

Here are some sample talking points:

• SB 5559 is a common-sense approach to youth hunting.  Please pass it quickly.

•  I support setting a minimum age of 16 at which youth can hunt unaccompanied.

• This legislation will make the woods safer for all trail users, especially as more people are heading into Washington's public lands to hike, hunt, camp and enjoy all that the backcountry has to offer.

Background:

As the number of people using Washington's backcountry trails has increased, so have the interactions between hunters, target-shooters and hikers. 

Washington state allows anyone who passes the state-mandated hunter safety course to hunt unaccompanied.  There is no age limit for receiving a hunting license.  Last summer, the inevitable result of this hole in our state hunting laws came to pass in the shooting of a hiker by a 14-year-old who thought she was a bear.  The youth hunter was accompanied by his 16-year-old companion.

After this shooting, WTA received an outpouring of comments from hikers relating incidents that they had with target-shooters and expressing concerns about unregulated youth hunting.  We have been working with Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles to introduce legislation to rectify this oversight. 

SB 5559 will:

• Set the minimum age that youth can hunt unaccompanied at 16.

• Requires the accompanying adult to be over 18 years old, and to  have held a hunting permit for the previous three years.

• Requires the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) to create and distribute user-friendly information on hunting areas  and seasons.

• Requires WDFW to place signs at hunting areas during hunting  seasons so that hikers are better-informed as to where they will  encounter hunters.