Washington Puts Hunters and Shooters at the Table: Inside the New Federal Advisory Council That Could Shape America's Outdoor Future
For the millions of American men who spend their weekends chasing elk through alpine timber, patterning turkeys in the pre-dawn dark, or running steel targets at the range, the machinery of federal policy can feel impossibly remote — a bureaucratic fog drifting somewhere between Washington and the nearest wilderness boundary. That disconnect just got a little narrower. The Department of the Interior has formally announced the council members for the reestablished Hunting and Shooting Sports Conservation and Access Council, a federal advisory body designed to put experienced, credentialed voices from the hunting and shooting sports world directly in front of the nation's top land management officials.
The move carries real weight. The Departments of the Interior and Agriculture collectively manage more than 640 million acres of federal public land, much of which is open to hunting and recreational shooting, and they play a critical role in the nation's conservation efforts. When the secretaries who oversee those acres sit down to make decisions about access, habitat, and wildlife policy, the council is the mechanism through which hunters and shooters can shape the outcome.
What the Council Is and Why It Was Rebuilt
The Department of the Interior announced the council members for the recently reestablished Hunting and Shooting Sports Conservation and Access Council, a federal advisory body that provides recommendations to the federal government through the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture on wildlife and habitat conservation, hunting and shooting sports, partnerships, and public access to hunting and shooting opportunities.
The DOI re-established and sought member nominations to the Hunting and Shooting Sports Conservation and Access Council, which replaces and changes the name of the previous Hunting and Wildlife Conservation Council. The Secretary of the Interior, after consultation with the General Services Administration, re-established the Council charter for two years. That two-year charter is not a token gesture — it locks in the council's official standing under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which governs how outside experts can legally interact with and advise executive agencies.
The Council's purpose is to provide recommendations to the Federal Government, through the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture, regarding wildlife and habitat conservation endeavors that benefit wildlife resources; encourage partnership among the public, sporting conservation organizations, and federal, state, tribal, and territorial governments; benefit hunting and the shooting sports; and increase public access to hunting and the shooting sports. That four-part mandate is notably broad — it encompasses everything from public land access fights in the rural West to firearm safety programs in suburban ranges.
The Hunting and Shooting Sports Conservation and Access Council was reestablished by Secretary Burgum earlier this year. The timing is deliberate. With a new administration in power and a secretary who has positioned the Interior Department as an ally to sporting communities, the relaunch signals a policy direction that prioritizes expanded access and industry partnership over the regulatory caution that often characterized previous administrations' land management decisions.
The Roster: Who Sits on This Council
The member list reads like a who's who of American hunting and shooting culture — not political operatives or lobbyists in the traditional sense, but practitioners and institutional leaders who have spent careers in the field, the marsh, and at the range. The breadth of representation is intentional, spanning waterfowl to big game, archery to competitive shooting, and conservation nonprofits to state wildlife agencies.
Wildlife and Habitat Conservation
Taylor L. Schmitz of the Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation represents the interests of wildlife and habitat conservation and management organizations. Schmitz's presence carries particular symbolic weight — the Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation publicly championed the council's relaunch and has been one of the most vocal institutional advocates for sportsmen's voices in federal policy. Robert K. Weaver of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation also represents wildlife and habitat conservation and management organizations. The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation has spent decades on the ground restoring elk habitat across the West, giving Weaver's seat a credibility rooted in actual conservation outcomes, not just advocacy.
Waterfowl and Game Birds
John L. Devney IV of the Delta Waterfowl Foundation represents the interests of waterfowl hunting organizations. Delta Waterfowl is one of the most research-driven duck hunting organizations in North America, and Devney's appointment signals that the council intends to take waterfowl habitat — particularly prairie pothole country and the Mississippi Flyway — seriously as a policy priority. Jason R. Burckhalter of the National Wild Turkey Federation represents the interests of game bird hunting organizations. Wild turkey populations have faced measurable pressure in recent years across multiple regions, making Burckhalter's role one with immediate urgency and a ready-made policy agenda.
Big Game and International Hunting Conservation
Christopher J. Tymeson of Safari Club International represents the interests of U.S. hunters actively engaged in domestic and/or international hunting conservation. Safari Club International is a politically connected organization with a membership that actively funds conservation in some of the most challenging wildlife habitats on earth. Tymeson's appointment acknowledges that American hunters operate on a global scale, and that international hunting conservation connects directly to species recovery and habitat preservation that ultimately benefits wildlife populations worldwide.
Rebecca K. Jones of the Dallas Safari Club represents the interests of big game hunting organizations. The Dallas Safari Club has long been at the forefront of conversations about sustainable use as a conservation model, and Jones brings that perspective into what promises to be a multifaceted policy debate about how best to fund and sustain North American wildlife management in a modern era.
Simon Roosevelt of the Boone and Crockett Club represents the interests of U.S. hunters actively engaged in domestic and/or international hunting conservation. The Boone and Crockett Club, founded by Theodore Roosevelt himself, remains arguably the most historically significant hunting conservation organization in the country. Roosevelt's appointment is the kind of institutional nod that connects this current council to a 130-year lineage of hunter-led conservation in America.
Shooting Sports and the Firearms Industry
Lawrence G. Keane of the National Shooting Sports Foundation represents the interests of the firearms and ammunition industry. The NSSF is the firearms industry's primary trade association, and its inclusion on the council is significant. Federal policy decisions on public land access, range construction, and lead ammunition alternatives affect manufacturers, retailers, and millions of recreational shooters directly. Having Keane at the table means those economic realities won't get lost in purely ecological debates.
Ward M. French III of USA Shooting also represents shooting sports interests, and Christopher DeWitt of the USA Shooting Foundation similarly represents shooting sports interests. USA Shooting governs Olympic-level competitive shooting in the United States, and its dual representation on the council underscores how seriously the current administration is treating the competitive and recreational shooting sports sector — not just traditional hunting — as a constituency worth engaging.
State and Regional Representation
Donald J. Williams of the Pennsylvania Governor's Advisory Council on Hunting, Fishing, and Conservation represents wildlife-associated recreation interests. Williams brings a state-level perspective that is often missing from federal advisory conversations — an understanding of how federal decisions ripple out into the practical, boots-on-the-ground world of state fish and wildlife agencies that actually issue licenses, manage populations, and open or close seasons.
John A. Allred of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Foundation represents the interests of tourism, outfitter, and guide businesses related to hunting and wildlife conservation. This is a frequently overlooked constituency in conservation policy debates. Outfitters and guides are often the economic backbone of rural communities across Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and the Southeast, and the businesses they run depend on healthy wildlife populations and accessible public land as directly as any other interest at the table.
Robert Kröger of The Origins Foundation also represents wildlife-associated recreation interests, adding another voice for the broad constituency of Americans who interact with the natural world through hunting, fishing, and wildlife watching.
Burgum and Rollins: The Secretaries Behind the Push
The political leadership driving this relaunch has been unambiguous in its stated priorities. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said: "Hunters and shooting sports enthusiasts have a long history of supporting wildlife conservation and responsible stewardship of our lands and waters. This Council brings their experience directly to the table as we work to expand access, strengthen conservation and ensure America's hunting and outdoor traditions continue for generations to come."
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins was equally direct. Rollins said: "By hearing directly from the hunters and sportsmen who spend their time in nature, we can better direct federal resources and policies to ensure responsible stewardship of our nation's forests. These incredible men and women who have agreed to serve on the council will serve as valuable resource as we work to Make America Beautiful Again."
The rhetoric from both secretaries reflects a governing philosophy that treats hunting and shooting not as politically sensitive activities to be managed cautiously, but as legitimate drivers of conservation outcomes — a position with deep historical roots that sometimes gets lost in contemporary land management debates. The fact that both the Interior and Agriculture departments are aligned on this council's mission matters practically: it means the council's recommendations can reach across the institutional seam that often separates forest management from wildlife policy.
A Lineage That Goes Back to Roosevelt
To understand why the reestablishment of this council matters, it helps to know its genealogy. The newly established Council builds on the Wildlife Hunting and Heritage Conservation Council, first established in 2010. That body was itself a successor to the Sporting Conservation Council, an earlier advisory structure that grew out of the recognition — stretching back to the Pittman-Robertson Act of 1937 — that hunters and shooters are the primary financial engine of American wildlife conservation.
The Pittman-Robertson Act created an excise tax on firearms and ammunition that has funneled billions of dollars into state wildlife agencies and habitat programs over the past nine decades. The Dingell-Johnson Act later extended the model to fishing tackle and motorboat fuel. Together, these two pieces of legislation represent the "North American Model of Wildlife Conservation," a framework that is genuinely unique in the world — one where the people who hunt and shoot pay disproportionately for the wildlife that the entire public enjoys. An advisory council that brings those same stakeholders into the room when the federal government crafts policy is the natural institutional expression of that model.
The council structure expanded membership to include the hunting and shooting sports industries, as well as broader representation from the nation's major hunting organizations, and its charter clearly defines its responsibilities in supporting the public, the sporting conservation community, the shooting and hunting sports industry, wildlife conservation organizations, and state and federal governments.
How the Council Actually Works
Understanding the mechanics of this body is important for anyone who wants to engage with it or track its outputs. The Council will meet at least two times per year, and the Secretary will appoint members and alternates to serve up to a three-year term. The Council will not exceed 18 primary representative members, up to 18 alternate representative members, and 4 ex officio members.
Ex officio members include the Secretary of the Interior or designated Department of the Interior representatives, the Secretary of Agriculture or designated Department of Agriculture representative, and the Executive Director of the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. The inclusion of the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies as a permanent ex officio presence is a meaningful structural choice — it keeps state wildlife managers in the room, ensuring that federal recommendations don't get decoupled from the on-the-ground realities that state agencies deal with daily.
Members of the Council serve without compensation. That detail matters because it filters for genuine commitment. The men and women who show up twice a year (at minimum) to advise cabinet secretaries on hunting and conservation policy are doing so because they believe in the mission, not because there's a paycheck attached.
The Council is charged with making recommendations related to hunting and shooting sports that will expand opportunities, conservation efforts, and the economic benefits to the national and local economies. Increasing opportunities for recreational hunting and shooting sports and wildlife conservation are all priorities within the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture.
What This Means for Access, Habitat, and the Sporting Economy
The practical stakes of this council's work are high. Access to public land for hunting and shooting has been a persistent flashpoint across the American West, where state-managed roads, wilderness designations, and energy development leases routinely determine whether a hunter can reach country that a map says should be his to use. The council's mandate to address public access is not just rhetorical — advisory recommendations to the Interior and Agriculture secretaries carry real influence over land use decisions that play out across millions of acres.
Habitat is the other half of the equation. Elk, deer, turkey, and waterfowl populations ultimately rise and fall on the quality and quantity of the habitat they occupy. Federal land management decisions — from prescribed burn programs to grazing lease structures to water rights adjudications — shape that habitat in ways that individual hunters have almost no ability to influence on their own. The council's member roster, which includes representatives from organizations like the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, the National Wild Turkey Federation, and the Delta Waterfowl Foundation, reflects an understanding that credible science-based habitat advocacy needs to flow upward into the policy process.
The shooting sports dimension of the council's mandate is equally consequential. Competitive shooting ranges on federal land, regulations governing lead ammunition alternatives, and access policies for recreational target shooting on Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service ground are all live issues for millions of American gun owners. The Council's purpose explicitly includes increasing public access to hunting and the shooting sports, and with NSSF and USA Shooting representation at the table, those interests now have organized, expert voices in the advisory process.
Sportsmen at the Highest Level of Government
The Hunting and Shooting Sports Conservation and Access Council is an important venue to work directly with the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture on the most pressing issues facing America's sportsmen and women. That framing — pressing issues — is not hyperbole. Between ongoing debates over wilderness designations that can effectively close backcountry to motorized access, ammunition technology mandates on federal lands, and long-term habitat degradation from drought and development, the list of genuinely urgent items this council could take up is substantial.
CSF Senior Vice President Taylor Schmitz said: "CSF extends our thanks to Secretaries Burgum and Rollins for their continued commitment to sportsmen and women and specifically thanks them for launching the Hunting and Shooting Sports Conservation and Access Council. As America enters our 250th Anniversary, the Council will provide a critical opportunity to advance our uniquely American outdoor heritage."
That framing — America's 250th Anniversary — is worth sitting with for a moment. The tradition of hunting and fishing in this country is as old as the republic itself, and in many ways older. The legal frameworks, public land systems, and conservation funding mechanisms that sustain that tradition today were built incrementally over more than a century of advocacy, legislation, and hard-won compromise. A federal advisory council that keeps experienced practitioners in dialogue with cabinet-level decision makers is one of the most direct mechanisms for protecting and extending that inheritance.
The Road Ahead
For hunters and shooters across the country, the formation of this council is neither a solved problem nor a guarantee of favorable outcomes. Advisory bodies can be ignored; recommendations can be shelved; political winds can shift between charter renewals. But the structural commitment embedded in this council — regular meetings, cabinet-level audiences, representation from across the full spectrum of hunting and shooting sports — creates a durable framework for influence that transcends any single administration's priorities.
The men who make up the bulk of this council's membership represent organizations with millions of dues-paying members, decades of conservation outcomes, and institutional credibility built through real work in the field. When Simon Roosevelt of the Boone and Crockett Club or Robert Weaver of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation walks into a room with the Secretary of the Interior, they carry with them not just personal expertise but the weight of institutions that have shaped American conservation for generations.
That is, ultimately, what this council represents at its best: a recognition that the people who are most deeply invested in healthy wildlife populations and accessible public land are hunters and shooters themselves — and that the federal government is better at its job when those voices are formally incorporated into the process. Whether the council delivers on that promise will depend on how seriously its members press their case, how receptive the secretaries remain to expert input, and whether the broader conservation community can hold the line on the habitat and access questions that matter most. The roster is in place. The real work starts now.
