Trump nominates former Wyoming Game and Fish director to lead USFWS

Washington, D.C. — The Trump administration last week nominated former Wyoming Game and Fish director Brian Nesvik to serve as the next director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

After his appointment by Gov. Mark Gordon in 2019, Nesvik served as Wyoming’s G&F director until his retirement in September 2024. He began his career with Game and Fish in 1995, serving the agency in various positions including as a game warden, regional wildlife supervisor, and chief game warden.

Along the way, he also served in the Wyoming Army National Guard for 35 years, retiring as a brigadier general in 2021.

Nesvik’s nomination will go to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee for review before a full Senate confirmation vote.

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In a press release, the National Wildlife Federation called on nominee Nesvik to prioritize species recovery and habitat conservation.

“Brian Nesvik has a great deal of experience managing wildlife and people, as well as enforcing the law as a wildlife manager, game warden, and leader of the wildlife agency and national guard in Wyoming. He has been a particularly strong proponent for conserving big-game migration corridors and expanding hunting and fishing in Wyoming,” said Mike Leahy, senior director of wildlife, hunting, and fishing policy at the NWF. “We look forward to working with Mr. Nesvik to support and fund the professionals at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the national wildlife refuge system as they continue to pursue a science-based, collaborative approach to recovering imperiled species …”

In an Instagram video for the American Hunters and Anglers Action Network last week, public lands advocate Land Tawney commended Nesvik’s decades “in the trenches” of natural resources management and enforcement. He said his organization looks forward to working with the new director, or challenging him when necessary, on managing and bolstering the nation’s refuge system.

“Brian Nesvik is boots on the ground, he’s a collaborator, he understands public lands, and he’s respected by the people who manage them,” Tawney said. “Does that mean we’re going to always agree? No, we’re not here to be anybody’s cheerleader, but unlike a lot of people in Washington D.C., he gets it.”

Safari Club International in a release said the nomination marks a “pivotal moment” for the future of U.S. wildlife management.

“Brian Nesvik has long supported sustainable-use conservation and responsible wildlife management. His values and demonstrated success align with SCI’s mission to defend the freedom to hunt,” said W. Laird Hamberlin, CEO of SCI. “SCI strongly supports his nomination and urges the Senate to confirm him swiftly.”

Nesvik currently sits on the board of the Wyldlife Fund, a nonprofit that raises money for Wyoming G&F. His profile on its website says he graduated from the University of Wyoming in 1994 with a B.S. in wildlife and fisheries biology and management. In 1995, he was selected by Wyoming G&F to serve as a wildlife law enforcement technician. In 1997, he was chosen as a game warden trainee in Casper, Wyo.

During his warden career, Nesvik served several districts that included patrolling remote wilderness areas in the summer and fall and protecting one of Wyoming’s mule deer herds in the winter. He worked several complex winter-range poaching cases and also was lead department mounted horse patrol instructor.

In 2010, Nesvik was promoted to serve as the Cody regional wildlife supervisor where he dealt with endangered species issues involving grizzly bears and wolves and elk-management challenges for Yellowstone National Park border herds.

He was appointed to serve as Wyoming’s chief game warden and chief of the Wildlife Division in 2011. In March 2019, Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon appointed Nesvik as the director of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, a role he held until he retired last fall.

As G&F director, Nesvik pushed to remove federal protections for grizzly bears. That would open the door to public hunting for the first time in decades after the animals bounced back from near-extinction last century in the northern U.S. Rocky Mountains.

Nesvik and his wife of 23 years have three children. His bio says he enjoys hunting, fishing, boating, and horseback riding.

New BLM director

President Trump also nominated Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Colorado-based oil industry trade group Western Energy Alliance, to lead the Bureau of Land Management. The post has wide influence over lands used for energy production, grazing, and recreation.

An MIT graduate, Sgamma has been a leading voice for the fossil fuel industry, calling for fewer drilling restrictions on public lands that produce about 10% of U.S. oil and gas.

If confirmed by the Senate, she would be a key architect of Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda alongside Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who leads the newly formed National Energy Council that Trump says will establish American “energy dominance” around the world. Trump has vowed to boost U.S. oil and gas drilling and move away from President Joe Biden’s focus on climate change.

Former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt relocated the BLM’s headquarters to Colorado during Trump’s first term, leading to a spike in employee resignations. The bureau went four years under Trump without a confirmed director.

The headquarters for the 10,000-person agency was moved back to Washington, D.C. under Biden, who installed Montanan Traci Stone-Manning at the bureau to lead that administration’s efforts to curb oil and gas production in the name of fighting climate change.

Sgamma will be charged with reversing those policies, by putting into effect a series of orders issued recently by Burgum as part of Trump’s plan to sharply expand fossil fuel production.

The AP contributed to this story.