Contact Our Wildlife Conservation and Rewilding Experts
Reach the Cougar Rewilding Foundation with field questions, donor and volunteer inquiries, partnership ideas, or grant-related proposals tied to cougar conservation in the East.
Connect With Our Conservation Team
A useful conservation email rarely starts with a polished pitch. It starts with a clear question, a real place, and enough context for the person reading it to know what kind of response will help.
For general inquiries, field observations, media questions, or introductions, contact Director Caleb Hartwell at [email protected]. Caleb routes messages to the right researcher, board member, or project lead when a topic needs a narrower answer.
If you are writing about a possible cougar sighting
Send the date, nearest town or landscape feature, time of day, behavior observed, and whether you have photos, tracks, scat, or trail-camera files. Do not trespass, bait wildlife, or return to a site alone to collect more material.
Because many field reports arrive with incomplete location or image metadata, the first reply may focus on what can be verified rather than on naming a sighting. That keeps the conversation honest and useful.
For background reading before you write, visit Cougar Sightings.
If you need the right person
Questions about governance, field experience, and scientific roles often belong with different people. Start with Caleb and include a short subject line such as “Volunteer inquiry,” “Grant timeline,” “Community partnership,” or “Field observation.”
You can also learn more about the people behind the work on Our Researchers & Board.
Before you send files
Please keep original photo and video files intact when possible. Cropped screenshots can help in a quick note, but originals often carry context that matters during review.
Support Our Rewilding Mission
Support usually starts smaller than people expect: one person forwards a trail-camera question, another offers time at a community meeting, someone else asks whether a gift can be directed toward field materials. Those small contacts are often where durable conservation work begins.
The Cougar Rewilding Foundation works at the intersection of rewilding advocacy, field research, conservation history, and public education. If you want to help, tell us what you can offer and where you are located. We can give a clearer answer when we know whether you are looking to donate, volunteer, host a discussion, or connect a local organization with our team.
Donors
Write with the amount or type of gift you have in mind, any timing requirements, and whether the support is unrestricted or tied to a specific program area. We will not treat a restricted gift as guaranteed until both sides understand its scope.
Volunteers
Tell us your skills first. Field note organization, local meeting support, historical document review, and outreach help can all matter. Availability matters too; a steady two hours can beat a dramatic promise that disappears.
Community partners
Schools, local conservation groups, landowners, and civic organizations should describe the audience, location, preferred timing, and the question they want answered. Good partnerships are specific before they are ambitious.
Our rewilding work is not a slogan pasted over every landscape. It asks what habitat can support, what communities need to understand, and what history still shapes public reaction to large carnivores. If your inquiry touches those questions, it belongs in the conversation.
For a broader view of the foundation’s purpose, read About the Cougar Rewilding Foundation.
Collaborate on Research and Grants
Grant and research emails need a different level of detail. A short, vague invitation is hard to evaluate, even when the idea is promising. A focused note lets us see the work, the timeline, and the obligations before anyone spends a week chasing documents.
What to include in a grant inquiry
- The project title and a plain-language summary of the conservation problem.
- The proposed geography, including states, regions, or habitat corridors involved.
- The role you want the Cougar Rewilding Foundation to play.
- Key deadlines, review dates, and expected decision points.
- Any budget range, match requirement, or reporting obligation already known.
- Names of confirmed partners and the status of their commitment.
- Data, field access, outreach, or permitting questions that need early attention.
Sustained cooperation over consecutive project phases works best when expectations are written down early. If the request involves research participation, say whether you are asking for field input, historical context, public education support, review of materials, or a formal project affiliation.
For research-centered conversations, it helps to read through Field Research before sending a proposal. That will give your note better footing and reduce the chance that the first reply is spent clarifying basic scope.
Send the first note with the essentials
Email Caleb Hartwell at [email protected] with a clear subject line, a short project summary, your deadline, and the one decision you need from our team next.