Robert Barnwell Roosevelt was born August 7, 1829 and is credited as a strong influence on Theodore Roosevelt’s life as a conservationist. Barnwell was Theodore Roosevelts Uncle. he was a hunter, fisher, and conservationist. Hunters of the time were the first conservationists due to their knowledge of wild game. Barnwell organized several clubs to restrain slaughter of game. He also founded the New York State fishery Commission in 1867. He took on the job as one of the three commissioners and held that position for twenty years with no salary. 1868-1888. He created all of the reports and his commission inspired other states to do the same.
Barnwell lived prior to the strong conservationist movement, but his ideology of maintaining the ecosystem stemmed from interacting with the environment as a hunter and fisherman; which were the seeds of the conservation movement. He never identified as a conservationist or preservationist, but as a civil servant he would have probably identified as a conservationist so as not to exclude the pubic.