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After abrupt move to governor’s office, former Wyoming Game and Fish boss moves on to private lands nonprofit

Angi Bruce will start in late September as chief programs and policy officer for the Denver-based Western Landowners Alliance, the organization has announced.

by Mike Koshmrl 41 minutes agoAugust 27, 2026

Angi Bruce, then-deputy director of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, addresses the audience in July 2023 at the Sublette County Library during a meeting to gather public feedback on sage grouse core area revisions. (Mike Koshmrl/WyoFile)

Angi Bruce’s stint working in a newly created policy job with Gov. Mark Gordon’s team is shaping up to last only a matter of weeks.

The former Wyoming Game and Fish Department director abruptly resigned Aug. 7 and “effective immediately” took a job with the governor’s office as the newly created director of special policy initiatives. Her departure from the state wildlife agency followed a controversial two-year tenure. There are indications the resignation was involuntary: When she left, Bruce had a calendar filled with upcoming Game and Fish duties, and she took a significant pay cut, according to public records acquired by WyoFile.

Now, Bruce is on the professional move again. On Thursday, Western Landowners Alliance announced that the nonprofit had hired the Game and Fish’s first-ever female director as its chief programs and policy officer, and that she starts in late September.

“I have had the opportunity to collaborate with Angi over the past decade,” Western Landowners Alliance CEO Lesli Allison said in a statement. “She is a big-picture thinker who also understands the politics and practical realities of getting things done on the ground.”

Bruce will oversee the alliance’s work on sustaining working lands, connected landscapes and native species in the new role. In a statement, she said her new employer is giving her the opportunity to combine her “two loves,” which are “landowners and wildlife.”

“Growing up on a farm, I learned early on the land ethic of landowners and how valuable their contributions are to maintaining healthy wildlife populations and connected landscapes,” Bruce said.

Director Angi Bruce’s departure from Wyoming Game and Fish was likely involuntary, records suggest

Q&A with Angi Bruce: Wyoming Game and Fish’s first female director — and rare biologist boss

Western Landowners Alliance, which lists a Denver address and was formed in the early 2010s, has a mission statement that seeks to advance policies and practices that “sustain working lands, connected landscapes and native species.”

“WLA provides a collective voice, a peer network and a shared knowledge base for landowners striving to keep the land whole and healthy,” the organization’s website states.

Well-known Wyoming resident Bob Budd, who directs the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust, sits on the group’s board.

WyoFile reached out to Allison and Bruce for this story, but did not receive a response in time for publication.

Mike Koshmrl

Mike Koshmrl reports on Wyoming's wildlife and natural resources. Prior to joining WyoFile, he spent nearly a decade covering the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem’s wild places and creatures for the Jackson... More by Mike Koshmrl

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