It’s hard for Jason Phelps not to see the Weyerhaeuser land surrounding Pe Ell as his own. Three generations of Phelps men before him worked in those forests, harvesting timber for a paycheck then collecting it for firewood to heat their homes. Jason’s father taught him to hunt there just as three previous generations of Phelps fathers taught their sons.
Now, as the owner of Phelps Game Calls, Jason has made a career around his passion. But for the second consecutive year, Phelps is breaking tradition and not hunting Weyco land.
He’s doing it in protest of the costly permits the company now requires hunters to obtain before they hunt any of its tree farms.
In the Pe Ell area, hunters will have to pay $200 for one of the 550 permits sold to enter the 105,530 acres in an area designated as Pe Ell North or $250 for one of 500 permits for the 98,254 acres of Pe Ell South. The permits are valid from Aug. 1 to Jan. 31. Access is free the rest of the year with the exception of the Coastal Timberlands tree farm.
But Weyerhaeuser isn’t the only timber company charging for access, it’s just the latest.
According to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, more than 1.3 million acres of private timber lands in Western Washington are under some kind of fee program.
The company says it implemented the permit system to recoup some of the expenses it sees from road wear, vandalism and illegal dumping, but many people from the public see it as a money grab.
“I respect the private property rights. They’re free to do what they want. On the other hand, I’m upset about it because they own so much of it,” Phelps said. “It’s not that I can’t afford it … It’s that I’m not going to buy into paying for access for what’s in my backyard.”
Phelps isn’t alone. Hunters across Western Washington say they’re not going to pay to access lands they’ve hunted for generations for free. A Facebook page called, “Sportsmen Not Buying Weyerhaeuser Permits” was created in early May and has over 900 members.
Many area outdoorsmen feel the company has lost sight of the people who’ve worked for them for generations.
“I believe it’s going to limit the ability for the general member of the community to access the same timber lands they’ve accessed for 125 years,” said Elma resident and hunter Chad Searls. “The bottom line is it’s going to hurt the general public and our way of life.”
Searls echos many hunters in his argument that the permit system is unfair because the timber companies received millions of acres at little or no cost from the railroad companies who initially received 175 million acres for free from the United States government via the Pacific Railroad Acts of the 1860s.
“This is going to be a public relations nightmare for them,” state Rep. Ed Orcutt, R-Kalama said. “Weyco owns so much property in those areas there’s really no other land around where people can go hunt.”
Orcutt said many of his constituents told him they will go out of state to do their hunting from now on. That has him worried because hunting funds many state wildlife programs and is a key component to elk and deer management plans.
“Hunters are doing these companies a service by reducing the number of elk and deer that would otherwise be eating the seedlings on the company's property,” he said.
WDFW small game and hunter access section manager Brian Calkins said his department is concerned that the expensive and limited permits will prevent a large number of people from hunting, and it will put public lands under greater pressure as more people turn to them as more affordable alternatives.
Weyerhaeuser spokesman Anthony Chavez said the company wants to keep its land open to the public but it also wants to recoup some of the damages it sees from illegal dumping, road damage and vandalism.
He said the changes will no doubt be difficult for people to get used to, but that the hunters who bought permits for the Pe Ell and Vale areas last year enjoyed a, “a better quality recreating experience in a controlled environment.”
“Last year all of the permits sold out within three hours,” he said. “We saw less damage on those properties as well.
Under the new permits, only the hunter, his or her spouse and their immediate children under 18 years old will be allowed to enter the property. Everyone else will be required to buy a separate permit. If someone shoots an animal, they won’t be allowed to bring unpermitted friends onto the property to help them drag it out.
Skeptics of the new plan say vandals will still have from February to the end of July to damage the property and the company should have reached out to hunting groups who would have helped repair the damage for free.
“I understand their issues, but they’ve allowed people to hunt out there for a lot of years. They keep citing dumping as an issue, but there’s other solutions,” Orcutt said. “If there’s something we can do to make it easier to use volunteers, I think it’d be the best way.”
WDFW used to mitigate damages with volunteers who managed road access and picked up trash on the private roads, but Calkins said the department will pull those programs and it won’t be able to offer a financial incentive to compete with the permit profits.
“We’d love to be able to, and we do, in some parts, offer cash incentives, but we don’t have the resources for millions of acres,” he said.
