During the 73rd North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference, held last month in Phoenix, Arizona, Wildlife Management Institute (WMI) President Steve Williams announced that Bob Carmichael was the recipient of WMI's 2008 Presidents Award. Our recipient is a wildlife biologist, whose career has spanned six decades.

Carmichael began as a field worker and only recently retired after more than 20 years as a wildlife agency administrator. In those capacities and others, he proved to be accomplished and, in the process, earned the respect and admiration of those with whom he worked. "Among the most distinguishing qualities of the recipient," said Williams, have been Bob's "undaunted willingness to take on some of the most onerous and sensitive issues facing natural resource management and his remarkable ability to deal with them effectively."

The WMI Presidents Award recognizes ingenuity, tenacity and accomplishment in the interest of advancing natural resource management and stewardship, in the tradition of WMI's former presidents.

During Bob Carmichael's tenure with the Manitoba Wildlife Branch, from 1974 to 2005, including in the capacities as Chief of Commercial Wildlife Management and as Chief of Game, Fur and Problem Wildlife Management, he tackled humane-trapping protocols, animal rights issues, agriculture-wildlife conflicts, aboriginal interests and interprovincial relations, among others. Emphasis was placed on the recipient's advocacy for cooperative Canadian-U.S. wildlife policies, practices and science-based conservation. "Not least of all," said Williams, "as his many friends and colleagues know, Bob Carmichael is a gentleman of ingenuity, tenacity and accomplishment."

Currently residing in Keewatin, Ontario, with wife Carol Anne, Bob now serves as Senior Advisor of Operations and International Programs for the Delta Waterfowl Foundation.

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