AbstractProgram accreditation has been debated for many years by fisheries and wildlife professionals as a way of improving educational quality, conferring professional recognition, facilitating employment decisions regarding hiring and promotion, and providing numerous other possible benefits. We discuss the potential benefits and disadvantages of program accreditation and give examples of current accreditation or similar systems for professional evaluation and recognition. We believe the potential benefits of an accreditation program would not be sufficient to counteract its many significant disadvantages, and such a program would be redundant with the current certification programs of the American Fisheries Society (AFS) and The Wildlife Society (TWS) and other program review methods. Because of the difficulty of reaching agreement within the fisheries and wildlife professions and the resistance of colleges and universities to accept new accreditation programs, we believe there is little likelihood of accreditation of fisheries or wildlife programs being implemented in the foreseeable future.