Beth Pratt on Coexisting with Wildlife in Urban Spaces

Flanigan's Eco-Logic

In this Convo of Flanigan’s Eco-Logic, Ted speaks with Beth Pratt, the Regional Executive Director of the California Regional Center of the National Wildlife Federation. She is a lifelong advocate for wildlife, and has worked in environmental leadership roles for over twenty-five years. She has also spearheaded the #SaveLACougars campaign to collaborate, fund, and build the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, the largest crossing in North America—and potentially the world—to help save a population of mountain lions from extinction. The initiative has raised a half a billion dollars in private funding to advance wildlife crossings across California and the country.

She and Ted discuss her background, growing up North of Boston, obtaining a BS/BA from the University of Massachusetts, an MBA from Regis University, earning the LEED AP credential, and training with Vice President Al Gore as part of his Climate Reality Leadership Corps. Before joining the Federation in 2011, she worked on sustainability, green building, and climate change programs for Xanterra Parks & Resorts in Yellowstone as its Director of Sustainability. Under her leadership, Yellowstone’s environmental programs received environmental achievement awards from the National Park Service three years in a row. Prior to her role in Yellowstone, she served as the Vice President/CFO for the non-profit Yosemite Association (now Yosemite Conservancy) in Yosemite National Park.

Although most of her career has been spent in national parks, she shares that her main conservation priority is now focused on urban wildlife conservation and creating coexistence strategies within urban spaces. She believes that the future of conservation is about the integral link between wildlife and people – and cities are vital to forging those links.

Di Angelo Publications just released her new book, I Heart Wildlife: A Guided Activity Journal for Connecting with the Wild World in August, and Heyday Books published When Mountain Lions Are Neighbors in 2016. She has given a TEDx talk about coexisting with wildlife called, “How a Lonely Cougar in Los Angeles Inspired the World,” and is featured in the new documentary, “The Cat that Changed America.” Her book, Yosemite Wildlife, with photographer Robb Hirsch, will be released by the Yosemite Conservancy in 2025.