In the 1950s, Roy Heberger’s father involved him in the pre-Clean Water Act activities of the Genesee Conservation League (GCL), an organization active in fighting development and preserving wetlands habitats. “My father was a blue-collar lithographer and an avid outdoorsman who grew up during the depression along the southern shoreline of Lake Ontario. His proximity to waterways and wetlands played a role in shaping his values, and as an adult he saw loss of wetlands to development as a real threat to those values,” Heberger said. “He took me to each monthly meeting of the GCL to expose me to ‘the good fight.’ He also took the time to share with me those natural resources he so cherished.”

These childhood experiences inspired Heberger to make a lifelong career of “fighting the good fight” with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, from which he retired as deputy state supervisor of the Snake River Basin Office in Boise, Idaho, in 2000. His work had a significant impact on salmon and steelhead habitat issues, and in his words, “less so on main-stem Snake River fish passage – a serious impediment to salmon and steelhead recovery to this day.” He also ran Idaho’s wolf recovery program.

Accolades and success stories poured in for Heberger over his three decades in the field. His research on the effects of dissolved oxygen depletion on crustacean zooplankton in Lake Erie earned the Great Lakes Fishery Laboratory’s James W. Moffett Publication Award in 1973. In the 1980s, when he moved from research to what he called “combat biology,” Heberger and others fought hard enough against hydroelectric development in Idaho river drainages that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission conducted an analysis pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act.

“Only 12 of 60-plus projects were eventually approved,” Heberger said, “thereby saving miles of stream, riverine, and riparian habitat from development. I still feel pretty good about that.”

He also served as the U.S. Department of the Interior's technical negotiator in the Snake River Basin Adjudication (SRBA) of water rights from its advent in the mid-1980s. The SRBA’s Final Unified Decree was signed in 2014, providing a comprehensive guideline for water ownership and disputes throughout the state. In 1995, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reintroduced wolves into central Idaho and Yellowstone National Park, Heberger took responsibility, overseeing a cadre of a half-dozen biologists and technicians doing the everyday work of wolf recovery while he also handled the politics. “Wolf recovery was ultimately a biological success while being a near-total sociological failure,” he said. “There is something about wolves — folks just love them or hate them; there seems to be little in between.”

Post-retirement, Heberger volunteered for Idaho Rivers United to review Idaho State Stream Alteration Permits under the Idaho State Stream Channel Protection Act, served on the Idaho Conservation League’s board of directors, was the technical negotiator for American Rivers in a relicensing dispute with the Idaho Power Company, and volunteered with Advocates for the West, providing scientific expertise to attorneys fighting to protect the region’s natural landscapes and native wildlife. He has also built eight wooden boats, five of his own design; one was featured in WoodenBoat Magazine. And, until his hearing became an issue, he was a member of The Bitterbrush Blues Band, writing songs and playing harmonica and resonator guitar for 13 years.