The Virginia Board of Game and Inland Fisheries (formerly the Commission of Game and Inland Fisheries) oversees the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries

Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries

The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, or VDGIF, regulates fish and wildlife in Virginia. It is managed by the Director of Game and Inland Fisheries and overseen by the Virginia Board of Game and Inland Fisheries.-Mission:...

.

Membership

The Code of Virginia provides that "the Board shall consist of not more than one member from each congressional district". Following Census 2000, Virginia was allocated 11 Congressional districts; therefore, the Board was limited to a maximum of 11 members.

Members are appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the General Assembly.

Powers

The Board has power to:

• Appoint the Director of the Department,
• Acquire lands and waters in the Commonwealth,
• Establish buildings, structures, dams, lakes, ponds, public landings, wharves, or docks,
• Regulate or prohibit drilling, dredging or other operations on VDGIF property,
• Conduct operations for the preservation and propagation of game birds, game animals, fish and other wildlife,
• Introduce new species of game birds, game animals or fish to Virginia,
• Publish and distribute educational matter pertaining to wildlife,
• Collect user fees for admittance, parking, and hunting,
• Delegate power to the Director of Game and Inland Fisheries, and
• Regulate hunting, taking, capture, killing, possession, sale, purchase and transportation of wild birds, wild animals, and inland water fish.

Rulemaking process

The Board holds meetings every year to consider amendments to the Virginia Administrative Code. In even-numbered years, fish and aquatic regulations are reviewed. In odd numbered years, game and terrestrial nongame wildlife regulations are reviewed. Procedures for emergency situations had not yet been developed, as of 2004.

Snakeheads

A famous regulation issued by the Board is 4VAC15-30-40, banning importation of snakeheads. It may have been violated between 2002 and 2004, when persons unknown disposed of a live snakehead somewhere in the Chesapeake Bay

Chesapeake Bay

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. It lies off the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by Maryland and Virginia. The Chesapeake Bay's drainage basin covers in the District of Columbia and parts of six states: New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West...

 watershed

Drainage basin

A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...

. In 2003, the VDGIF arrested a pet shop manager for snakehead possession.

Wild animals

4VAC15-30-10 bans possession of wild animals in Virginia. 4VAC15-20-50 defines a wild animal as "Any member of the animal kingdom, except domestic

Domestication

Domestication or taming is the process whereby a population of animals or plants, through a process of selection, becomes accustomed to human provision and control. In the Convention on Biological Diversity a domesticated species is defined as a 'species in which the evolutionary process has been...

 animals, including without limitation any native, naturalized, or nonnative (exotic) mammal

Mammal

Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...

, fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

, bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

, amphibian, reptile

Reptile

Reptiles are members of a class of air-breathing, ectothermic vertebrates which are characterized by laying shelled eggs , and having skin covered in scales and/or scutes. They are tetrapods, either having four limbs or being descended from four-limbed ancestors...

, mollusk, crustacean

Crustacean

Crustaceans form a very large group of arthropods, usually treated as a subphylum, which includes such familiar animals as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill and barnacles. The 50,000 described species range in size from Stygotantulus stocki at , to the Japanese spider crab with a leg span...

, arthropod

Arthropod

An arthropod is an invertebrate animal having an exoskeleton , a segmented body, and jointed appendages. Arthropods are members of the phylum Arthropoda , and include the insects, arachnids, crustaceans, and others...

 or other invertebrate

Invertebrate

An invertebrate is an animal without a backbone. The group includes 97% of all animal species – all animals except those in the chordate subphylum Vertebrata .Invertebrates form a paraphyletic group...

, and includes any hybrid of them, except as otherwise specified in regulations of the board, or part, product, egg, or offspring of them, or the dead body or parts of them."

The regulation then lists 26 domestic animals (dog

Dog

The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...

s, cat

Cat

The cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felids and felines, is a small, usually furry, domesticated, carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and for its ability to hunt vermin and household pests...

s, horse

Horse

The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...

s, etc.) which are exempt from the definition. Some Virginians, such as ferret

Ferret

The ferret is a domesticated mammal of the type Mustela putorius furo. Ferrets are sexually dimorphic predators with males being substantially larger than females. They typically have brown, black, white, or mixed fur...

 and skunk

Pet skunk

A pet skunk is a skunk kept by humans for companionship and enjoyment. Although capable of living indoors with humans similarly to dogs or cats, pet skunks are relatively rare, partly due to restrictive laws and the complexity of their care...

 enthusiasts, would like to see additional animals added to the list of allowed pets. See
Legal status of pet skunks in Virginia.