For the most part I give Washington state's Department of Natural Resources a thumbs up. There are a lot of things they could do better, but they run on a low budget with a lot of political pressure being put on them by everyone from the greenies to the big forest product companies.

Our Department of Fish and Wildlife (which is separate from the DNR) is in the same boat. They do a pretty decent job overall, with moments of greatness on occasion.

Both departments have to deal with HUGE environmental hot potatoes here in the west: Spotted owls, endangered salmon, old growth forests, wildfires, and water quality to name a few of the more well known.

The Mouse