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September 20, 2007

ULM Alumnus named division administrator for LA Dept. of Wildlife and Fisheries

University of Louisiana at Monroe alumni have a history of doing well with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

Jimmy Anthony has been named the next Wildlife Division Administrator, replacing ULM alumnus David Moreland, who retired Friday, Sept. 7.

Anthony has been working with the agency for over three decades after receiving his bachelor’s of science degree in wildlife management and conservation (’77) and his master’s of science degree in biology (’79) from ULM.

"I am very honored to have been selected to lead the Wildlife Division,” said Anthony on the LDWF Web site. “I believe that the past 30 plus years of public service in natural resource management has adequately prepared me for this challenge. I will continue to challenge the Wildlife Division staff for new and innovative approaches to wildlife management and public utilization of those resources."

Anthony has spent a substantial portion of his career in the Monroe region, working there for the first 24 years. He began as a radio dispatcher for the Enforcement Division in 1976 and then became a biological aide for the Inland Fisheries Division in 1978. Later that same year, he took his first position with the Wildlife Division as a wildlife specialist, working on the Russell Sage Wildlife Management Area.

He followed this up with a wildlife management supervisor position from 1981 to 1992 for the Ouachita WMA, where he planted food plots, trapped ducks and turkeys for research purposes, and collected deer samples.

As stated on the LDWF Web site, “from 1992 to 2000, Anthony served as a biologist on seven WMAs, and his work included wildlife restoration projects, wood duck box and banding operations, turkey restocking, deer management and deer herd evaluations. In 2000, Anthony made the move to LDWF headquarters in Baton Rouge, as he accepted the position of biologist program manager overseeing all of Louisiana's WMAs. In February of 2007, Anthony took on the Wildlife Division's assistant administrator position.

“Anthony is currently a part of multiple wildlife-oriented groups. He is the president of the Louisiana Professional Biologist Association, the Region 4 Southeastern Coordinators representative for the Federal Aid Coordinators Working Group… and is the chairman of the FACWG with a full seat on the Wildlife Trust Funds Committee of the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. Anthony also teaches as an adjunct biology professor at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond.”

Neil Douglas, a ULM professor emeritus and the former director/curator of the ULM Museum of Natural History vertebrate (fish and reptiles) collection from 1962-1997, remembers Anthony as his 36th gradate student, and that his master’s thesis was entitled “A taxonomic survey of the fishes of the Little River system of Central Louisiana from the junction of Dugdemona River and Castor Bayou to its confluence with the Ouachita River.”

Interestingly enough, he also recalls Anthony’s predecessor, Moreland. He got his master’s degree under Dale Thomas in 1976 with a thesis entitled ”A preliminary survey of the vascular flora of Bienville Parish, Louisiana.”

“Our biology program has quite a history of providing quality graduates,” said instructor Dennis Bell.

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