Vern Evans
When the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee convenes Wednesday to consider the nomination of Brian Nesvik, President Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, expect to hear a lot about his credentials.
He’s a former Wyoming Game and Fish Department game warden who rose through the ranks to become head of enforcement and then the agency’s director. He’s a military leader who served 35 years in the Wyoming National Guard, where he did two combat tours.
As the nominee to lead the federal agency that manages the nation’s wildlife refuges, enforces federal wildlife laws, and administers international treaties like the Migratory Bird Commission, he has specific experiences germane to the job. He also has support from some conservation groups, including the Boone and Crockett Club and Safari Club International.
But he doesn’t have the support of a number of other conservation groups, including a coalition headed by Western Watersheds Project, who collectively condemn Nesvik for failing to manage chronic wasting disease and for perpetuating what they call Wyoming’s persecution of grizzly bears and wolves — two species that would be under his purview as USFWS director.
These groups are encouraging senators on the committee to grill Nesvik about his inaction to stop feeding elk through the winter, a century-long practice in Wyoming that unnaturally concentrates elk and makes them susceptible to diseases. A panel of scientists recommended in 2023 that Wyoming Game and Fish consider alternatives to elk feeding out of “an abundance of concern” that CWD might spread among concentrated elk.
That’s precisely what happened, and this winter CWD-infected dead elk have been found on four Wyoming feeding grounds. The disease is closing in on the USFWS-managed National Elk Refuge in Jackson Hole, and conservationists worry that once elk disperse from the feedgrounds next month they’ll become vectors in a worst-case scenario, carrying the disease to Yellowstone National Park and then into Montana and Idaho herds.
“Under Nesvik, the Game and Fish Department’s own report openly acknowledged what a problem the feed grounds were and are,” says a Wyoming Game and Fish wildlife biologist who didn’t have permission to speak on the record. “If his job was to be a leader, then he would have gotten serious about phasing out feeding. We’ve been warned for decades about the risk of feeding and have done nothing.”
Nick Gevock puts a sharper point on Nesvik’s inaction on phasing out feedgrounds and what he calls Wyoming’s “war on predators.”
“Every decision out of Wyoming Game and Fish caters to two constituencies, hunting outfitters who want to sell trophies and ranchers,” says Gevock, Northern Rockies field organizer for the Sierra Club. “The entire feedground model is designed to keep elk out of ranchers’ hay in the winter but ensure they have enough bulls for outfitters to sell in the fall. More significantly for his role at USFWS, it’s a tendency to favor politics over science.”
Nesvik is also likely to get questions about predator management if he’s confirmed as USFWS director. Wyoming has two legal classifications for gray wolves. In the area around Yellowstone National Park, the predators are considered trophy animals and can be hunted with managed permits and harvest quotas. In the rest of the state wolves are considered vermin and can be shot on sight.
Last year, Wyoming’s wolf management was in the news when a Daniel man disabled a wolf in the predator zone by running it over with a snowmobile, then bringing the wounded wolf into a bar before eventually killing it. A bill that would have outlawed running over wolves with snow machines failed this year in the Wyoming legislature.
Wolf management across the country is likely to be a high priority for the USFWS under its next director. So will grizzly bear management, especially if calls to remove grizzlies from endangered species protections are successful. Wyoming’s legislature considered a bill this session that would have added a coupon to elk licenses to take a bonus grizzly, once the bears are delisted. The coupon legislation ultimately failed.
“Wyoming treats grizzlies like vermin, and Nesvik not only comes from that basis but could be in a position to make it national policy, not only misguided state policy,” says Gevock.
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According to sources, other topics Nesvik is likely to face in tomorrow’s hearing include his support for National Wildlife Refuge staff and funding, his commitment to continuing research into combating CWD in America’s deer herd, and calls for abolishing or reforming the Endangered Species Act.
“There is no way the Senate won’t confirm Nesvik,” said one source. “He has the experience. He has the credentials. I think the committee will be asking how he landed on some of his decisions as agency director, and how they might inform his work at the national level.”
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