As hunting becomes more expensive, county considers taxing timberland owners

Hunters across Wahkiakum and Pacific counties say they have reached a breaking point as financial giants make their way of life increasingly expensive and dangerous, and county commissioners are taking notice. But as nearly-unreachable global timberland investment giants have moved in and blocked off access to tens of thousands of acres of forest land — including state and private lands where hunting is still allowed — commissioners across Wahkiakum and Pacific counties say they are running out of options. These investment companies aren’t contributing their share to the local economy due to tax breaks, but are still charging residents fees to hunt, a previously longtime free pastime, leaders say.

The tax breaks

For Lisa Olsen, a Pacific County commissioner, one of the most frustrating aspects of the situation is that the timberland owners are getting large tax breaks from the state as they cut off access and profit from selling hunting leases. “They’re getting huge fees for people to do this,” she said, referring to hunting, “and I don’t think they should be getting their exemptions if that’s what they’re going to do.”

For a half-century, timber has been exempted from yearly property tax in Washington because of the forest excise tax. The law makes it so companies don’t pay taxes on the trees until they’re harvested. While they do pay property taxes on the land on which timber is grown, the assessed value of the lands is reduced thanks to the state’s designated forestland program.

What does that look like in practice?

In 2024, a pair of limited liability companies — set up by two companies affiliated with a 21st Century German prince to facilitate land purchases for European mega-investors — spent about $114 million on about 12,000 acres in Wahkiakum County across two purchases. Last year, the companies paid $1.64 per acre in taxes for those properties, The Daily News found in an analysis of county tax records. 

On top of that, much of the profits from the sale and exchange of timberland and timber are also exempt from Washington’s 2021 capital gains tax. Olsen said the tax breaks shift the burden of supporting the counties onto residents and other businesses.

She and Wahkiakum County Commissioner Dan Cothren said that hurts, especially for counties like Pacific and Wahkiakum, which have a disproportionate population of senior citizens. Some low-income seniors receive exemptions from property taxes because they’re surviving on a fixed income, meaning the county is already earning less tax revenue.

Rising costs

“You see all these permits I got? It’s money,” said Shawn Jacob, gesturing to hunting tags hanging on the rearview mirror in his truck in August. “That one was almost $600, that one was $300, and they just raised the Discovery (pass).” Jacob moved to the county from Longview in 2006, partly looking for a space to operate a boat repair company to tap into the local fishing economy. While work brought him, it was hunting that kept him there. But Jacob has grown increasingly frustrated in recent years as he’s seen free public access hunting grounds shrinking, hunting leases becoming more prevalent and the price of those leases increasing.

Still, locals are interested in paying to hunt.

“My constituents, my folks, are calling and asking, ‘Well, what can we do? This is our heritage, this is our history, and we can’t get access to these lands — we’re willing to pay,” Cothren said.With the decline of logging and commercial fishing, Wahkiakum County has sunk to Washington’s second poorest county and has the highest unemployment rate.

Gabe Bergman, a Wahkiakum County gunsmith who works for out-of-state clients, has seen access and costs to hunt rise. His family has hunted in the region since the late 1940s. He says timberland owners’ policies have compounded problems for struggling households, reducing access to healthy, affordable food and pricing families out of inter-generation traditions. “When you’re raising kids, and the kids can’t hunt off of your permit,” he said, “now you got to buy multiple permits for the kids, and you’re spending $2,000 to $3,000 by the time you’re done, just in fuel costs, permits — just to get out.”

Bergman, Cothren and other hunters also said the small area hunters can now access affordably increases the likelihood of potentially deadly hunting accidents on what accessible land remains. “Something’s gonna happen. Just too many people on one spot,” Cothren said. With shrinking access as a backdrop, both the number of hunters and the number of bagged elk have reduced in the last decades, data from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife shows.

Industry perspective

Rayonier and Weyerhaeuser are the main timberland owners selling increasingly expensive hunting leases in Wahkiakum and Pacific counties. In individual statements, each company emphasized they also offer some free hunting lands. Weyerhaeuser said it offers nearly 20,000 acres of free to hunt land across Clark, Cowlitz, Pacific and Wahkiakum counties through a couple of programs.

“Our system is intended to balance local access,” Rayonier spokesperson Jane Wilder said, “with the rising operational costs necessary to maintain healthy, accessible forestlands, and the vital wildlife habitat within them.” She added that the company complies with all tax laws, and hunting lease fees support its forest management expenses.

The tax push

Cothren and Olsen have fought to ensure the timber industry can stay in the region. But the two also said logging takes a costly toll on county roads and other infrastructure. Pacific County has imposed a tax on truckers known as “road hall fees.” The policy is primarily aimed at logging to address the damage logging trucks cause.

“We don’t charge enough because we don’t get very much, and it’s all on the honor system, so we get hosed,” Olsen said. “It’s maintenance that maybe we wouldn’t have to have done for another 10 years if we didn’t have all that weight on our county roads.”

Dave Tobin, another Pacific County commissioner, echoed Olsen. Jerry Doyle, the third Pacific County commissioner, said it’s time for the county to revisit the rates. While Pacific County commissioners are looking to raise the tax, Cothren said Wahkiakum is considering instituting its own version. “We’re looking to do a tax on the trucking here in the county,” he said. “We haven’t done it. Pacific County has. But our roads get tore all to s**t.”

Lee Tischer, another Wahkiakum County commissioner, agreed with Cothren’s stance, adding that he’d like to see Washington ban foreign entities from owning U.S. timberland in the hopes of allowing more public access. At least nine states have bans on foreign companies owning farm land, and Indiana banned foreign entities from owning both farmland and timberland. Cothren and all three Pacific County commissioners agree with Tischer.

But even local efforts to regain hunting access in the past have come up against the powerful timber lobby. “The timber lobby has been really good at making sure that any legislation that’s coming up that is going to impact them — they’re really good at making sure they try and curtail that,” said Olsen, adding that these companies also benefit the county. 

Conversations and consequences

Despite the opposing points of view, timber companies and small timber-dependent counties need each other. And leaders of both expressed a desire to work out the issue without aggressive new tax policies. “I don’t want the rich doctor from an hour away to come to my land,” said Bolko Graf von der Schulenburg, “I prefer to have the local guys for also a very selfish reason: because if I have friction with a local community, I don’t want that anguish. It only leads to problems.”

Schulenburg leads U.S. operations for Salm Schulenburg, which brokers wealthy European investors’ land purchases, including in Wahkiakum County, then manages the land for them. He said his company is open to working with the counties. 

“So if we make things available to someone else, there needs to be a benefit in there for the landowner as well,” he said. “It cannot just be a cost.” Cothren said he would prefer to sit down with Schulenburg and hammer out a deal that’s mutually beneficial than play hardball. “Let’s make it to where it’s profitable for you, but it’s also profitable for us, because it isn’t right the way it is,” he said.

Henry Brannan, reporting for The Daily News in Longview, is with the Washington State Murrow Fellowships, a local news program supported by state legislators.