The former Wyoming Game and Fish Director has been tapped to lead the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, adding another Western states leader to the list of nominations made by President Trump.  

Brian Nesvik retired from his post as the Wyoming Game and Fish Director in early 2024 and returned to the ranch near Pinedale. A former game warden, Nesvik is particularly well versed in grizzly bear management, something Wyoming Stock Growers Association Executive Jim Magagna said is positive.

“That certainly is a tremendous blessing for Wyoming and the West,” Magagna said. “He was unusual in his ability to work with (Wyoming Stock Growers) when he was the Game and Fish director. He also manages the family ranch, so he’s got that background and his wife’s family’s ranch. I may question him why he’s willing to give up the ranch to go to D.C., but I’m thrilled that he’s doing it.”

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Magagna said endangered species protections, when not needed to preserve the species, only become a hindrance to good management of wildlife and other uses on public and private lands, and this is something Nesvik understands.

“So many of the issues out here that we deal with that impact our industry are related to endangered species and wildlife management, and frankly, to government interference in our wildlife management,” Magagna said. “So having someone back there who understands from his personal experience that the state wildlife agencies are best equipped to manage our wildlife.”

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Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon also applauded Nesvik’s nomination, saying his knowledge of the challenges facing Western states will ensure Wyoming has a seat at the table when engaging with the federal government on issues.

Nesvik’s career with Wyoming Game and Fish spanned some 30 years. Magagna called his nomination, coupled with other experts from the region, the rise of the West in D.C.

BLM DIRECTOR

Kathleen Sgamma, the President of the Denver-based Western Energy Alliance, has been nominated as Bureau of Land Management director. Magagna said he has worked with her in the past on a number of projects and is pleased with her nomination.

“We’re bringing people who live on the resource, work on the resource who understand the people out here in the West to now oversee the management of these resources from back in D.C.,” Magagna said.

“President Trump also made an excellent choice in selecting Kathleen Sgamma to lead the Bureau of Land Management,” Gov. Gordon said. “As someone who has worked with Ms. Sgamma. I know she is well-qualified and knowledgeable when it comes to Wyoming, the West, and multiple uses of public lands. I look forward to working with her on a range of issues, including our efforts to identify suitable BLM lands for purchase or exchange.”

Former North Dakota Gov. Doug Bergum has been nominated to lead the Department of the Interior, a choice Magagna calls positive.

There’s been no official word about a nominee to lead the U.S. Forest Service. Magagna said he hopes the new administration can properly conclude the Charles and Heather Maude case in South Dakota, a ranching couple with Wyoming ties indicted on criminal charges of theft of federal land over a fence line discrepancy. Magagna said the charges have been an embarrassment to the agencies responsible.

WYOMING LEGISLATURE

In Wyoming, the legislature has whittled the original 555 bills down and the deadline for bills to move out of the house of origin has passed, leaving the full body with considerably fewer bills to consider. State land management has been an ongoing struggle, he said, and there are a few bills still moving forward to that regard. A bill dealing with the potential relocation of big horned sheep to central Wyoming’s Sweetwater Rocks area in southern Fremont County has been troubling for producers.

“The ag industry and the big horned sheep foundation and other stakeholders have agreed we would not support a reintroduction there or anywhere else in Wyoming unless we had federal legislation that guarantees that no domestic livestock would be removed as a result of the big horn’s presence,” he said.

A bill that was passed last year defined that if no federal law was enacted to prevent the removal of domestic sheep by 2026 has, during this session, been extended to 2028. With the current federal administration, Magagna said such legislation is certainly probable.

Legislation responding to the incident in which a Wyoming man ran down a wolf with a snowmobile before taking it to a bar and later shooting it continues to make its way through the process as well.

“We had the bill that the task force that I served on as the ag representative came up with and that one didn’t seem to satisfy people enough, so we worked with several others and came up with what is now HB 275,” he said. “It’s something we’re comfortable with. It says you can still use a snowmobile to run down a wolf or coyote, but if you run down an animal with a vehicle, you have to take immediate action to put it to death, you can’t allow it to suffer.”

The penalty, he said, for violating that law has been increased to a felony if the inaction is intentional and a reasonable effort hasn’t been made to euthanize the animal.

Many of the bills, he said, are policy statements more than changing how business is done in the state.

“For example, we have a bill that says we oppose mandatory electronic identification, which is fine but it is what it is, and nothing we put in statute is going to change it,” he said. “We have another that says all U.S. born, raised, and processed beef sold in Wyoming must be labeled. We have no practical ability to enforce that at the state level. There has been a whole host of bills dealing with foreign ownership of land and natural resources in the state as well.”

One failed bill that concerned Magagna was one that sought to prohibit the sale of land, minerals or other natural resources to the federal government without the prior approval of the Wyoming legislature.

“We don’t want more federal presence, but on the other hand, if you believe in private property rights, how can you tell me who I can sell my land to?” he said.

Magagna said there are still several pieces of legislation on property tax amendments still moving forward, a topic that has been top of mind thus far in the session. He said property tax relief is welcome, but broad cuts will cause Wyoming to pay a price someday.

He said one topic that livestock producers are approaching with alarm is the recent proposal by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to broaden the range of grizzly bears. The state filed litigation claiming they didn’t receive a timely response to their request to delist grizzly bears and the response from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was alarming.

“What we expected to get back would be an answer on the litigation, that the agency would either delist or deny,” he said. “Instead, what we got back at the very end of the Biden administration was a denial of Wyoming’s petition, and then they created a vastly expanded proposed habitat area for grizzly bears.”

He said the area includes nearly the entire state of Idaho, two-thirds of Montana, and in Wyoming, where the protected area was previously a small corner of the state near Yellowstone, the area was expanded south nearly to Interstate 80.

“That was totally unacceptable,” he said. “That’s something we would work very hard to overturn and one we would really benefit from having Brian Nesvik directing USFWS because he was one of the strongest advocates for delisting the grizzly bear while he was serving as our director.”