NORTH DAKOTA OUTDOORS MAGAZINE

Casey Anderson Named Deputy Director

Ron Wilson

Jeb Williams, Game and Fish Department director, announced in early June the appointment of Casey Anderson to the agency’s deputy director position.

Anderson has been with the Department for 24 years, seven years as assistant wildlife division chief, and for the last four years he led the wildlife division as chief.

“Casey Anderson brings a combination of field and administrative experience, strong leadership, and an unwavering commitment to North Dakota’s fish and wildlife resources,” Williams said. “His ability to communicate with both the public and staff, coupled with a lifelong passion for our state, makes him exceptionally well-suited to step into the deputy director position.”

North Dakota OUTDOORS interviewed Anderson about the promotion and what’s around the corner.

NDO: First of all, congratulations. When you started as a wildlife seasonal in 2001 in Riverdale spraying noxious weeds and mending fences, did you ever imagine becoming deputy director?

Anderson: I did not, to be honest. Riverdale was close to home, and I thought that’s where I wanted to stay, continue to get my hands dirty, work with habitat, work with critters … do the things that I studied in school.

NDO: You’ve held seven positions with Game and Fish, the last of which was wildlife division chief. Does your focus change now that you’ve taken yet another step up the ladder?

Anderson: As I gained more and more knowledge in the different positions I held, I’ve gotten to a point where it’s a necessity to focus more on the big picture, focus more on the future of the Department versus what’s going to happen this fall. This position just gives you somewhat of a different perspective, although the goal remains that I’m in it for the resource and maintaining North Dakota’s outdoor opportunities.

Casey on podcast set

NDO: You’re no stranger to the hurdles the agency has had to face and will continue to face. Do those struggles remain the same?

Anderson: North Dakota’s landscape has shifted. While private landowners have to make business decisions on the landscape, there’s no mistaking that the overall habitat base, where 93% of the land in the state is privately owned, has shifted. We’ve lost habitat across North Dakota, but more so in some areas than others. We’ve seen this, maybe more than with anything else, with our deer populations. We’ve been getting into more conservative deer license numbers — maybe not conservative enough for some people — with the intention of letting that population rebound as much as possible with the amount of habitat we have left. That’s kind of the kicker.

There’s only so far they’re going to be able to rebound before they’re either causing too many conflicts on the landscape because there isn’t enough habitat to spread them out, or they just can’t reproduce beyond a certain point because of the available habitat. I also think we need to continue the effort of strengthening hunter-landowner relations. Hunter-landowner relations need to be continually worked on, but with the shift from rural to urban, which is happening everywhere in the nation, those relationships take a lot more effort, especially for the hunters than it used to. It used to be those relationships were with an uncle, grandpa or grandpa’s dad’s friends. You had those hunting contacts that were ingrained in your family system. And I think a lot of that has been lost. Today, it takes more work on the hunter’s part to keep those relationships going.

Casey Anderson kneels over a white-tailed doe that son, Jesper, shot in 2022 on the family farm near Turtle Lake.

NDO: Do you think as deputy director you’ll have a bigger hand in influencing change than when you were wildlife division chief?

Anderson: I think there will be different opportunities to influence change. It will be just a different level of change. I’m going to be outside of my wildlife division realm that I’ve been in my entire career. I’m going to be dealing with things concerning fisheries or nongame species more than I was before. Considering the Department is so small and we work well together, the transition won’t be difficult. For certain, I’ll be working in different circles. I won’t just be talking about hunting, or wildlife habitat type of things. So those are the different types of areas that I will be able to work on change if there needs to be.

NDO: The outdoor life means a lot to many people who live in North Dakota. Understanding that, do you feel even more responsibility to our constituents as deputy director than as wildlife division chief?

Anderson: I don’t think about it in that way, because I truly believe that the outdoor experience is good for the heart, soul and mind. I live it, I breathe it. People enjoy the outdoors in different ways, not just hunting and fishing, which is something we have to understand and embrace. We always talk about balance at Game and Fish and how to work in that balance to maintain those opportunities in a way that people can enjoy them as long as we’re still able to manage the resources to benefit those things. But, no, I don’t look at this responsibility as a burden but more as a duty. We do add a pretty good footprint to North Dakota’s economy as far as hunting, fishing and other outdoor activities go. To have a healthy state and a healthy economy, you have to have all of it. In many instances, our outdoor opportunities are what keeps people here … it’s part of North Dakota’s appeal and attracts people to move here. While I think we talk way too much about the good old days, we need to focus on what we have now. Instead of beating on what it used to be to like, say, in the heyday of CRP, we need to focus on at least maintaining what we have and improving upon it where we can.

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