| https://www.biggame.org/2020/10/20/first-conservation-trailblazer-award/ Clay Brewer has been selected as the inaugural winner of DSC’s Conservation Trailblazer Award. This award celebrates the immense contribution of wildlife professionals to the field of game and non-game wildlife conservation, including wildlife and habitat management, applied research and policy. Brewer will be presented the award, plus a $10,000 contribution toward his work in wildlife conservation, at the Feb. 11 evening banquet during the 2021 DSC Convention to be held Feb.11-14. Brewer, who is the Conservation Director and Bighorn Sheep Program Lead of The Wild Sheep Foundation, was nominated for the award by Texas Bighorn Society President Dr. Sam Cunningham with strong support letters from Texas Parks & Wildlife Executive Director Carter Smith, Wild Sheep Foundation President Gray Thornton and Texas Bighorn Society Board Member Emeritus Tommy Caruthers. Brewer began his career at Texas Parks and Wildlife (TPWD) as a wildlife biologist in Central Texas and worked up the ranks to Regional Director of Region II. While at TPWD, he built a solid partnership with many landowners recognizing that desert bighorns move across the landscape and that landowners are an integral part of desert bighorn management in Texas. These efforts were the benchmark in the reestablishment and continued conservation of the desert bighorn sheep in West Texas. Almost immediately after retiring from TPWD, he went to work as the Conservation Director and Bighorn Sheep Program Lead for the Wild Sheep Foundation, where he oversees wild sheep conservation, management and research activities in the western United States, Canada and Mexico. |