Having been in the fish part of both agencies I have a little different take but it was decades ago.

At that time, conservation took a backseat to fishing in Game. There was a recognized need to sell licenses and this meant go fish. WDF, at that time, and in salmon, generally put escapement first. As some new directors game in and co-management became stronger, that weakened.

While it is true that WDF "ate" WDW at least part of the reason was that segments of WDF planned how to merge. WDW didn't.

But, certainly for our fish resources, the new agency worships Chrome Cod above all other fish.

Based on mergers of other agencies, conventional wisdom was that actual merger would not occur until all the pre-merger employees were gone. Problem is that a new resource oriented culture did not take.