UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — At first glance, Haley Sankey doesn’t seem a likely candidate for the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s appointed board of commissioners.
She’s an assistant teaching professor in the John A. Dutton e-Education Institute at Penn State. She teaches and advises in the Energy and Sustainability Policy program and has an extensive background in energy transitions and educating the next generation of leaders who are interested, as she says, “in doing better" for their future, their children’s future and for the planet.
For the past several months, she’s also been serving a four-year term on the game commission’s board, representing District 4, which includes Bedford, Blair, Cambria, Fulton, Huntingdon and Somerset counties. She was nominated by Governor Tom Wolf and approved by the Pennsylvania State Senate in December.
In that role, Sankey is tasked with representing the interests of hunters while fulfilling the commission’s core mission of protecting the state’s 480 species of wild birds and mammals.
Truthfully, it’s Sankey’s love of the outdoors — hunting, fishing, hiking, biking and more — that inspired her career in conservation and sustainability. Before joining Penn State in 2011, she held jobs such as a hydropower relicensing consultant with a careful eye on projects’ impacts on fish and wildlife.
Still, she said, her students sometimes give her looks when they find out she’s an avid hunter.
Her passion for sustainability and conservation first began while spending time on her grandfather’s dairy farm.
“Resources were limited, and stewardship wasn’t a choice; it was a livelihood,” Sankey said. “Witnessing farm life up close fostered a lasting respect for the planet and built the foundation for my beliefs regarding human rights and privileges in relation to nature.”
Sankey’s childhood was spent hunting and fishing alongside her dad in the Pennsylvania wilderness, memories for which she was grateful for his patience and perseverance.
In high school, her environmental science and biology teachers built on those interests as she learned about managing soil and water resources, fish migrations, and wildlife tagging and tracking. It all inspired her undergraduate degree in environmental practice and policy that she received in 1999 from Juniata College.
A couple of years ago, from her Tyrone home that borders State Game Lands, Sankey began wondering how she and her husband could begin giving back to the things they most benefited from. It was serendipity, she said, that this opportunity almost immediately showed up.
Many know of the game commission as being responsible for land and wildlife management, but fees associated with some outdoor activities, mainly through an excise tax on arms and ammunition, help fuel the game commission’s larger role of protecting our lands, wildlife and waterways.
Sankey’s broad background in environmental science, sustainability and resource management, as well as experience working with nonprofits across the state, should serve her well in the position. So will her newfound interest in archery, which forces you to be a quiet spectator to the forest.
“Typically, when recreating outdoors, we’re moving through nature,” Sankey said. “When you’re forced to sit still in nature and watch it move around you, you see, hear, and learn so much more.”
Sankey has a few goals in mind. She wants to help transition the game commission into being a better communicator. Engaging the broader public in the far-reaching mission of the agency continues to be a priority. Sankey said the agency just created the Bureau of Marketing and Strategic Communications. The outreach and education efforts by that team, she said, have increased transparency and access to information.
She always wants game lands' signage to be easier for the public to understand. It’s a chance to communicate how the land can be used while speaking to the game commission’s core mission.
Because the agency will need to attract new hunters to continue to achieve their goals, Sankey said it’s important to speak to those new groups.
“I want to see the diversity of our hunting population continue to grow and I’m excited about the game commission’s efforts in that arena,” Sankey said. “They’ve been making strides by offering mentored hunting programs, working to expand available hunting days and offering hunter safety courses in Spanish.”