Longtime TWS member wins WMI’s top award

TWS member Jim Heffelfinger has won the Wildlife Management Institute’s highest award, the George Bird Grinnell Memorial Award for Distinguished Service to Natural Resource Conservation. The award was presented during the Conservation Administrators Luncheon at the institute’s 91^st North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference in Columbus, Ohio.

Named after George Bird Grinnell, widely acknowledged as the “Father of American Conservation,” The Wildlife Management Institute calls the award “the highest honor that an individual can receive in the wildlife management profession.”

Heffelfinger is the Wildlife Science Coordinator with the Arizona Game and Fish Department and adjunct professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Heffelfinger’s long and successful career has spanned wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) restoration, ungulate population dynamics and large carnivore recovery.

“Congratulations to longtime TWS member Jim Heffelfinger, a dedicated wildlife professional and without question a deserving recipient of the prestigious George Bird Grinnell Award from our partners at the Wildlife Management Institute,” said TWS CEO Ed Arnett.