With 17 years of experience in the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and still more with the Idaho Fish and Game Dept. before coming to assignments in Sheridan, Alpine and Lovell, Senior Game Warden James Hobbs was named the 2024 Shikar-Safari Wildlife Officer of the year at the end of 2024.

“This is a huge honor and quite humbling. There have been a lot of great officers before me that have received this award and this is humbling to be included in those ranks,” he told SVI Media in an interview.

Referencing the honor and  Safari Club International, Hobbs explained, “They have always been a club that supports good wildlife management. They are recognized across North America, the United States and Canada, with one award per state each year directed to officers that show outstanding performance in wildlife management and wildlife law enforcement.”

The club’s honor found it’s way to a person always intrigued with wildlife.

“I’m from the Mountain West, a little town called Salmon, Idaho. I had two main passions growing up, like most of us in small towns, sports and hunting. I loved to be out hunting. It’s a remote place, a small town like Star Valley. It’s a place that I got out all the time with my brother. I knew I wanted to do something with wildlife as a I grew up,” Hobbs recalled. “I was looking at becoming a  wildlife biologist, a game warden or an outfitter. I went into the game warden to protect wildlife. I’m still the person, being with the department now for 20 years, to stop and look at wildlife.”

Hobbs explained the significance of wildlife to Wyoming. “Certainly we have some great blessings here in Wyoming such as natural resources, such as the natural gas and oil, we think of that often with Wyoming. But one thing we also have in great abundance is our wildlife. We are blessed in Wyoming that we don’t have a super high population so we are able to enjoy many things with wildlife that other states just can’t handle because they have more people and more hunters.”

Hobbs is pleased with the direction the state is taking and he credited those whom he works with and serves. “I hope that we continue down the path that we are going in the aspect that we provide opportunities for hunters. We can serve the wildlife but we can also serve the public. And one of things I want to do here other than to just manage wildlife is to serve the people. We have some great people in this area. What got me to this point in my career is because of so many great people that I have been able to work with in the public, not just in the department or in the other agencies but the public themselves, including the average hunter all the way up to the outfitters and everything else.”

He continued, “I think Wyoming is looked at as a state that does well with their wildlife management. I’m biased but I think that we are probably the best state when it comes to that. I hope that we don’t lose that no matter what changes with leadership, no matter with what changes with the different people that work for the state. I want to keep that. I want to keep that culture in our state to protect wildlife and to protect opportunities for hunters and people that view wildlife and all different aspects of the wildlife field.”

Hobbs concluded, “I see an elk on the side of the road driving up the Greys, I still like to stop and look at it. I love these animals, these amazing creations, whatever we believe where they came from, it’s just awesome to see them here. It gives me joy to see them and I want to protect them, not only for us right now but for future generations to come.