Governor Morrisey's NRC Appointments Betray the Model That Built American Wildlife

OPINION | WEST VIRGINIA SPORTSMEN

Governor Morrisey's NRC Appointments Betray the Model That Built American Wildlife

When the people who fund conservation are removed from its governance, something more than a commission seat is lost — the entire principle that made American wildlife the envy of the world is put at risk.

By Shon Butler | Longspur Tracking & Outfitting | Buckhannon, West Virginia

When Governor Patrick Morrisey announced five appointments to the West Virginia Natural Resources Commission this week, the reaction from this state's hunting and fishing community was immediate, visceral, and entirely justified. A bed and breakfast owner. A school board attorney. A business professional. An organizational leadership consultant. And a former Secretary of Commerce who once oversaw — but by all accounts never lived — the outdoor life that the NRC is supposed to protect.

West Virginia's sportsmen did not mince words. "This has to be a joke," wrote one. "Slap in the face," wrote another. "Do they even hunt in WV?" asked a third. These are not the complaints of people resistant to good government. They are the complaints of people who understand, perhaps better than any policy analyst in Charleston, exactly what is at stake when the wrong people sit in those chairs.

To understand why this matters so deeply, you have to go back more than a century — to the founding document of American wildlife management itself.

The Model That Saved American Wildlife

In the late 1800s, North America's wildlife was in collapse. Market hunters had commercially slaughtered passenger pigeons into extinction. Bison herds that once numbered in the tens of millions were reduced to a few hundred animals. White-tailed deer had nearly vanished from West Virginia's mountains. Wild turkeys were ghosts in the hollows.

It was sportsmen — hunters and anglers — who reversed that collapse. Not politicians. Not administrators. Not bed and breakfast owners. Hunters. Men and women who had walked the ground, learned the land, and understood that if wildlife disappeared, something irreplaceable in the American character would disappear with it.

Led by figures like Theodore Roosevelt and George Bird Grinnell, they built what we now call the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation — widely regarded as the most successful system of wildlife management on earth. It rests on seven foundational pillars, and every single one of them is relevant to what just happened in West Virginia.

Sportsmen did not just advocate for wildlife. They taxed themselves to fund it. Since 1937, hunters, shooters, and anglers have generated over $25 billion for conservation through the Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson Acts.

Seven Pillars. Zero Representation.

The first pillar of the North American Model is the Public Trust Doctrine: wildlife belongs to all citizens and is managed by government on their behalf. Not for the tourism industry. Not for administrators building resumes. For the people — which in this context means the hunters, anglers, hikers, and outdoor families whose license fees, excise taxes, and on-the-ground knowledge actually sustain the system.

The sixth pillar is the Democracy of Hunting and Fishing: every citizen, regardless of wealth, prestige, or land ownership, has equal opportunity to pursue fish and wildlife under the law. That democratic principle does not stop at the woods’ edge. It must extend to the commission room. When working hunters and anglers are systematically excluded from the body that sets the rules governing their way of life, that is not democracy. That is disenfranchisement with a press release attached.

The seventh pillar is that science must be the foundation of wildlife policy. Science-based management requires people who understand the resource firsthand — who have watched deer herds respond to mast crop failures, who have logged changes in turkey populations across ridgelines, who understand what EHD does to a watershed, or what happens to a trout stream when water temperatures climb in August. A background in organizational leadership does not provide that understanding. Decades in the field does.

None of the five new appointees were described — in the Governor's own press release — as hunters, anglers, trappers, or wildlife biologists. One was noted for her television work highlighting DNR police officers, which is admirable and relevant, but it is not the same as a lifetime spent in the woods and on the water. That distinction matters enormously when the commission is tasked with setting deer season frameworks, trout stocking policy, and public land access regulations.

Who Actually Funds This System?

Here is the financial reality that too few people in Charleston seem to understand: hunters and anglers fund the overwhelming majority of wildlife conservation in this country. License fees. Stamps. The Pittman-Robertson excise tax on firearms and ammunition. The Dingell-Johnson tax on fishing equipment. These are self-imposed contributions from sportsmen — not general tax revenue, not federal grants, not tourism dollars.

In 2022 alone, a record $1.5 billion was distributed to state wildlife agencies through the Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson programs. In West Virginia, hunter and angler dollars constitute the financial backbone of the Division of Natural Resources’ conservation mission. The people paying into this system are overwhelmingly the same people being denied seats at the table governing it.

As one commenter put it plainly: "We need leaders in positions of power that are out in the fields and streams, just as we are." That is not a radical demand. That is a reasonable expectation from the people who built and sustain the entire enterprise.

You cannot tell the people who fund wildlife conservation that they don't have standing to govern it. That's not stewardship. That's taxation without representation.

The Preservation Trap

There is a critical distinction that this commission's composition blurs, and it is one that West Virginia's sportsmen have learned the hard way to watch for: the difference between conservation and preservation.

Conservation, in the tradition of the North American Model, means the wise, science-based, sustainable use of wildlife resources — regulated harvest, habitat management, population monitoring, and active intervention to maintain healthy ecosystems. It is a philosophy built on engagement with the land, not separation from it.

Preservation, by contrast, tends toward restriction — limiting human interaction with wildlife and wildlands in the name of protection, often at the expense of the hunters, anglers, and rural communities whose traditions, livelihoods, and cultural identity are bound to those resources.

When we see a commission composed primarily of business professionals, attorneys, and administrators with no stated outdoor background, we are right to ask which direction the needle will move. History — including the long tenure of appointees who told sportsmen they were listening while voting the other way — teaches us that caution is warranted.

West Virginia's hunters and anglers are not anti-conservation. They ARE conservation. They walk the timber. They count the sign. They notice when the fawn crop is poor or the gobbler numbers are down. They are the original citizen scientists of this state's wild places. Sidelining their voice on the commission that governs their traditions is not just politically tone-deaf. It is a structural failure of the system the North American Model was designed to prevent.

What Good Appointments Look Like

This is not about party politics. It is not about personal attacks on individuals who may very well grow into their roles and surprise us. One commenter specifically defended Lauren Winans of Buckhannon — a television host who highlighted DNR officers and has taken her children hunting as a single mother — as someone who could earn that trust. We take that at face value and hope she proves the skeptics wrong.

But hope is not a governance strategy. A commission of seven people charged with advising the DNR on fish and wildlife regulations should include a meaningful majority of experienced, practicing sportsmen and -women. Not former administrators. Not political allies. Not people whose connection to conservation is organizational rather than experiential.

Past governors have gotten this right — at least partially. Governor Justice made appointments that reflected a genuine effort to return the commission to the people it serves but he dropped the ball by not making appointments during his last year of office. Former Director McDaniels and the State Legislature worked to undo decades of lifetime political appointments that had calcified the body into an extension of DNR bureaucracy. Governor Morrisey had the opportunity to continue and strengthen that tradition. He did not take it.

The Organizations That Were Never Asked

Perhaps the most telling detail in Governor Morrisey's appointment announcement is not who was named — it is who was never consulted. West Virginia is home to a deep and organized network of sportsmen and conservation organizations, each representing thousands of dues-paying members who have dedicated their lives and resources to the fish, wildlife, and wild places of this state. Not one of them appears to have had a meaningful seat at the table when these appointments were made.

These are not fringe groups. They are the institutional backbone of American wildlife conservation — the organizations that have planted habitat, stocked streams, lobbied for public land access, funded research, and built the next generation of sportsmen for decades. Their combined membership in West Virginia represents tens of thousands of citizens with direct, irreplaceable knowledge of the resources the NRC is charged with managing.

West Virginia Deer Association

The voice of West Virginia's deer hunting community — the state's most pursued and most economically significant game species. The WVDA monitors herd health, advocates for season frameworks, and works directly with DNR on deer management policy. Their members live and breathe white-tailed deer biology year-round. They were not asked.

West Virginia Bear Hunters Association

West Virginia carries one of the most robust black bear populations in the eastern United States, and the WVBHA has been central to managing that resource responsibly for generations. Their expertise in bear behavior, population dynamics, and human-bear conflict is unmatched in this state. They were not asked.

Izaak Walton League of America

Founded in 1922, the Izaak Walton League is one of America's oldest conservation organizations, built on the principle that hunters and anglers are the original stewards of the American outdoors. Their West Virginia chapters have fought for clean water, healthy streams, and public access for over a century. They were not asked.

National Wild Turkey Federation

The NWTF has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in wild turkey habitat and population restoration across North America. West Virginia's remarkable turkey recovery — from near-zero populations to one of the most sought-after spring seasons in the region — is in no small part a product of their work. They were not asked.

Turkeys for Tomorrow

A newer but rapidly growing force in wild turkey conservation, Turkeys for Tomorrow has distinguished itself by asking hard questions about habitat, brood survival, and the long-term sustainability of turkey populations in the face of land use change and predator pressure. They represent some of the most scientifically engaged turkey hunters in the country. They were not asked.

The Ruffed Grouse Society

West Virginia's young forests and ridge-and-valley topography make it one of the most important ruffed grouse states remaining in the eastern United States. The RGS has championed early successional forest management — including the timber practices that benefit not just grouse but deer, bear, turkey, songbirds, and dozens of other species. Their expertise in forest-wildlife relationships is directly relevant to NRC decision-making. They were not asked.

Trout Unlimited

Cold, clean, native trout streams are among West Virginia's most prized and most fragile natural assets. Trout Unlimited's West Virginia chapters have spent decades fighting for stream buffers, acid mine drainage remediation, and science-based stocking policy. Their members understand the aquatic ecosystems of this state at a level that no administrator or attorney can replicate without boots in the water. They were not asked.

Ducks Unlimited

DU has conserved more than 15 million acres of waterfowl habitat across North America and has been a leading force in wetlands science and policy for nearly 90 years. Their West Virginia members understand migratory bird corridors, wetlands hydrology, and the downstream effects of land use decisions on waterfowl populations — knowledge that is directly relevant to commission oversight of the state's rivers, lakes, and bottomlands. They were not asked.

These organizations represent the institutional memory of American wildlife conservation. To appoint a commission that manages their resources without consulting them is not an oversight. It is a statement about who this commission is actually meant to serve.

Each of these organizations funds habitat. Each trains the next generation of hunters and anglers. Each employs or engages professional wildlife biologists who have spent careers studying the species and ecosystems that the NRC governs. The collective expertise sitting in their membership rolls dwarfs anything a governor's appointment process has assembled in this round.

If the Morrisey administration is serious about evidence-based wildlife policy — as the Governor's own statement claims — then these organizations should have been the first phone calls made, not an afterthought in the public criticism that followed.

The Path Forward

The sportsmen of West Virginia are not going away. They are frustrated, they are paying attention, and they are increasingly organized. The comments flooding social media in the hours after this announcement were not the noise of a fringe minority. They were the voice of the constituency that the Natural Resources Commission exists to serve.

We intend to watch every vote these commissioners cast. We intend to show up at public meetings. We intend to make the record of this commission — and of the appointments that shaped it — part of the legislative conversation about how the NRC is structured going forward.

And to Governor Morrisey: we are not your adversaries. We are your constituents. West Virginia's outdoor economy, its cultural heritage, and the health of its wildlife all depend on a commission that speaks the language of the field and the stream — not just the boardroom and the campaign trail. The door is open to correct course. Future vacancies should be filled by people who have bled for this land, not just managed its paperwork.

Theodore Roosevelt did not save American wildlife by appointing people who had read about it. He did it by surrounding himself with people who had lived it.

The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation is the greatest wildlife success story in human history. West Virginia was a central chapter in that story — a state that brought white-tailed deer, wild turkey, and black bear back from near-oblivion through the dedication of sportsmen who refused to let their heritage disappear.

Those sportsmen deserve a commission that knows their names, walks their ground, and understands what it means to lay a hand on an animal you've pursued across these mountains — and to feel the weight of the responsibility that comes with it.

That commission is not the one that was just appointed. But it can still be built. West Virginia's sportsmen will not stop asking for it.

Shon Butler is the founder of Longspur Tracking & Outfitting, America's largest wounded game recovery operation, spanning 20 states with dozens of thermal drone pilots and professional tracking dog teams. He is a forester, wildlife biologist, published author, and the principal author of West Virginia’s drone legislation for ethical game recovery. He is based in Buckhannon, West Virginia.

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