28 Feb 2025 A conversation with the Wildlife Biologist Betsy Howell

We are featuring this title as part of our celebration of Women’s History Month. Use the code WOMEN to get 35% off this book and others on our website.

One of our newest titles is Betsy L. Howell’s Wild Forest Home: Stories of Conservation in the Pacific Northwest. Howell blends her expertise as a wildlife biologist with her considerable skills as a writer to create a lyrical first-person account of forestry and conservation in the Pacific Northwest. Her work is timely, as it presses on ecological challenges faced by non-human species. She critically underscores the interconnection of all species and of human societies to the natural world.

Howell lives on Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula. Her writing has appeared in American Forests, Earth Island Journal, The Wildlife Professional, Women in Natural Resources, and more. She is the author of a memoir, Acoustic Shadows, and a novel, The Marvelous Orange Tree.

What do you hope readers take away from your life in the field tracking, studying, and preserving forest species?

One of the ecological lessons I’m presented with every day is that of the interrelatedness of all species. It’s what I was taught in school and it’s a framework I’ve worked within my entire career. As a district biologist working in national forests, I work with a variety of taxa, from mammals to birds to amphibians and reptiles to invertebrates. Such variety means getting to use a lot of different survey techniques and also habitat enhancement methods that benefit species most at risk these days. What I wanted to do in Wild Forest Home is describe a bit of the amazing complexity and interconnectedness that I’ve been fortunate enough to experience in my career. From the very smallest resident of the forest to the largest and every one in between, they are all crucial to the healthy functioning of the whole. When one vanishes, the entire system is compromised, though the effects of their absence may not be noticeable to us right away. One essay in the book describes the important role of the ensatina salamander in the carbon cycling of western forests. I know many people understand the interrelatedness and dependence of species on each other, but if more begin to see the connections by reading my book, I will be very pleased.

I also wanted to simply describe the work of a USDA Forest Service biologist. I have found over many years that most people don’t know what we biologists do in national forests; indeed, most people, in my experience, often think I work as a ranger for the National Park Service even after I tell them what I do. I’ve had an amazing career in the forests of the Pacific Northwest and have worked with so many passionate, smart, dedicated people in wildlife conservation that I really wanted to share that.

Your work comments on climate change and species extinction. How does the work of a wildlife biologist contribute to conversations about current-day ecological concerns?

I think one of the most important parts of being a wildlife biologist is that of monitoring and documenting what we observe on the landscape. There is so much today that can be learned through remote sensing, which provides some important insight into animals’ lives, but we mustn’t ever forego our direct experience of the natural world. Particularly these days, changes to ecosystems, species distribution, and populations are happening extremely rapidly. Wildlife biologists are out there observing these changes while also looking back into the past to understand patterns and then trying to predict what may occur in the future. Having this kind of current information is crucial to the conversations surrounding prioritizing species and ecosystem recovery, quantifying impacts from climate change, managing invasive species, preventing habitat loss, minimizing impacts to species from disease, and stemming the tide of biodiversity loss.

What advice would you give to a young person trying to decide whether to follow a career in wildlife biology? Would you do anything differently if you could do it all over again?

Great questions! I have had such a great career that I will always encourage people to go into wildlife biology if that’s where their hearts are. I think this is one of the most rewarding careers to have, along with writing, though it’s not easy. There is rarely enough money and staff to do all the work that needs to be done, and often the best jobs in the field and in spectacular wild landscapes last only a few months and come with few or no benefits. Still, there are so many opportunities, for example, in management and research, in public outreach and habitat restoration, and are all basically many arms of the same goal, which is to restore and sustain ecosystems and aquatic and terrestrial wildlife populations.

I think if I could do anything differently, I might have gone into research as I really like the process of investigation. Sometimes too I’ve lamented that I’m not more of an expert on any one thing, though I have loved the variety of my career, which has allowed me to put together a book like Wild Forest Home.

As a writer and biologist, how do you understand the intersection between literature and the physical sciences?

I think this intersection is absolutely crucial. One of the quotes in Wild Forest Home is from Rachel Carson in 1952 when she accepted the National Book Award for The Sea Around Us. She said, “The aim of science is to discover and illuminate truth. And that, I take it, is the aim of literature, whether biography or history or fiction; it seems to me, then, that there can be no separate literature of science.” I agree with this, that both literature and science seek to discover truth and to share that truth. There is much great environmental writing out there these days from people of all kinds of backgrounds, including scientists, journalists, and others. But I do think that field biologists, with our unique role of being direct witnesses and participants in the events occurring in the natural world, have a great opportunity to share what we know through writing. This usually involves agency reports and scientific papers, but what we understand and have experienced can also be conveyed through literary essays, popular magazine articles, opinion pieces for newspapers, children’s or young adult books, novels, and narrative nonfiction. The point is to educate and inform about this amazing world we live in and thereby instill in people the value of the natural world and how our own survival depends on functioning ecosystems. Needless to say, this isn’t an easy task, but it’s a critical one. We can share the truth of conservation challenges as well as the successes with the great community of people working toward environmental sustainability.

Wild Forest Home intimately intertwines your personal history with a particular place. How do you describe your spiritual connection to the forests of the Pacific Northwest, and what advice do you give to readers looking to form deep and abiding connections to landscapes and places where they reside?

I’d describe my connection as nearly as old as I am and very deep. I remember knowing the forests of the Pacific Northwest since I was four years old and we moved into a newly constructed neighborhood that had been carved out of the forest. I had a great childhood in many ways, but it was also challenging with alcoholic parents and a homelife that was perplexing and disturbing to a little kid. The forests that remained around our home became a refuge and I explored them alone and with friends. I remember when I was maybe 7 or 8 my friend Nan and I took off through the woods to a horse farm she said she had recently discovered. We were so excited! We found the horse farm, met the young woman who worked there and took care of the horses, and spent some time meeting the animals. I don’t remember how long we were there, but it was much longer than the time it would take to walk around our neighborhood loop, which is what we had told our parents we were doing. Nan and I eventually left the farm and traveled back along the forest trail to our neighborhood. As we popped out on the street, my parents pulled up in our VW Bug and they were, rightly, very angry! Relieved, too, of course.  From an early age, I think, the forest was the place I wanted to be and I have been blessed to live much of my life there.

I think this question of forming deep and abiding connections to landscapes and places where we live is a really important one. It’s imperative that people connect to the natural world if the natural world is to be appreciated, fought for, and conserved. Getting out to these areas and spending quality time there is a wonderful way to spend a day, and good for one’s health also. Hiking, backpacking, fishing, kayaking, birdwatching— all of these are great ways to spend time in forests and other ecosystems. People can also do more if they like by volunteering with local land trusts and other organizations to help with species surveys, invasive species removals, habitat improvement projects, etc. It can’t be overstated how important it is to connect with the land and work with others to give back to the ecological community.  

Jedediah Rogers is acquiring editor at the University of Utah Press.