2015 Outdoors: Transitions

TRANSITION

Died: Scott Reed, 87, Coeur d’Alene attorney who devoted career to environmental law and making the region a better place to live.

Died: Howard Worden, 93, creator of Rooster Tail spinner, and other fishing lures.

Died: Chuck Buck, 78, chairman of Buck Knives Inc.

Retired: Paul Green, 66, professor who founded Outdoor Recreation major program at Eastern Washington University in 1978.

Retired: Dave Ware, Washington Fish and Wildlife big-game director, wolf policy leader.

Renamed: Alaska’s Mount McKinley, highest peak in North America, renamed Denali by proclamation of President Obama.

Renamed: Nisqually Wildlife Refuge adds name of late Indian fishing activist Billy Frank Jr.

Hired: Jim Unsworth, 57, named director, Washington Fish and Wildlife Department, to replace retiring Phil Anderson.

Promoted: Andy Dux to Idaho Fish and Game Panhandle Region fisheries manager, replacing Jim Fredericks, who was promoted to state fisheries director in Boise.

Promoted: Chris Donley to Washington Fish and Wildlife regional fisheries manager in Spokane, replaced retiring John Whalen.

Promoted: Rodney Smoldon, district ranger, to Colville National Forest supervisor, replacing Laura Jo West, who transferred to a forest in Arizona.

Contracted: Francine Madden of the Human Wildlife Conflict Collaboration, to $83,000 post to mediate Wolf Advisory Group and help defuse tensions over the state’s expanding wolf population.

Dismissed: Don Thomas, field editor and columnist for Ducks Unlimited magazine after writing an article in another magazine critical of a wealthy former board member’s legal fight over public access on his land in Montana.

Delisted: Gray wolf, from Oregon state endangered species protection.

Reopened: Lyons Ferry State Park under state management for first time since 2002.

Revived: Spokane River Cleanup after 1-year hiatus.