Hands-On Event Exposes Students to Outdoor Recreation, Conservation Career Paths

November 15, 2024

MOA Fest, offered at locations around the country by TRCP partner Minority Outdoor Alliance, teaches hunting, fishing, and conservation skills and ideals

Earlier this month I was able to join one of our partner organizations, Minority Outdoor Alliance, for their annual MOA Fest. This festival has been held in various states throughout the country, including Texas, Alabama, and earlier this month, Pennsylvania.

The event is designed to allow college students who have had limited or no exposure to hunting, fishing, and outdoor recreation the opportunity to explore activities and careers in the outdoor and conservation space. Students are given the freedom to try new activities such as mountain biking, clay shooting, and rappelling. This year I watched as students from Temple University and Bucks County Community College kayaked, drew compound bows, and cast fly rods for the first time. Students were also able to participate in a community service project – planting and caging native trees in a local park. The setting was ideal to talk about conservation issues in Pennsylvania, where TRCP unifies the voices of hunters, anglers, and conservationists around key initiatives and works to ensure clean water, enhanced fisheries, and better public access and opportunities.

A student at MOA Fest 2024 learns how to shoot a compound bow. Credit: Carlina Croston

Husband and wife team and co-founders, Durrell and Ashley Smith, started the Minority Outdoor Alliance in the summer of 2020, and soon after offered the first MOA Fest.

“We are incredibly grateful to our dedicated sponsors and partners for making MOA Fest a reality each year,” said MOA President Durrell Smith. “The goals of the festival are unity and expanding the capacity of the host agency by serving as a bridge to connect younger and broader audiences with recreation opportunities and career opportunities in the outdoors.”

Durrell and Ashley Smith started the Minority Outdoor Alliance in summer 2020. Credit: MOA

“Watching students ask questions about how their current educational paths could intersect with the conservation industry was exciting to see.”

While it is always thrilling for students to watch a bird dog demonstration or to learn to cook wild game, MOA also expands participants’ ideas about what it takes to work in conservation and the outdoors. Many of the students who attend MOA Fest each year are from urban areas where spending time in the outdoors may not have been a focal point of their childhoods. When asked what types of careers they think are available, many are surprised to hear that they do not have to be park rangers or biologists to succeed.

The career fair portion of MOA Fest is an opportunity for the local state agencies and partner organizations to let students know about the various professional options available to them. Watching students ask questions about how their current educational paths could intersect with the conservation industry was exciting to see. Law majors discovered there is plenty of work to do in policy at all levels of government and communications majors heard about the teams at various agencies that are dedicated to sharing information across every platform. Facilitating conversations about their ability to protect our environment in diverse ways, early on in these students’ degree paths, may lead some to careers in the outdoors that they may never have considered if not exposed to an event like MOA Fest.

“The unity and diversity we witness at MOA Fest are reminders that the outdoors is a place for all to cherish.”
Durrell Smith, MOA president

What truly makes MOA Fest unique is the focus on underrepresented communities in the outdoor space. Students who have spent their lives in urban areas, with no regular exposure to all the great outdoors have to offer, are often shocked at the number of careers that are available. Being able to actively and effectively interact with this community of students is an asset to the outdoor and conservation space. Their unique perspectives and experiences will do nothing but enhance our collective ability to think nimbly and critically about issues central to our mission as we move into the future of conservation.

Students had the opportunity to experience kayaking at MOA Fest 2024. Credit: Carlina Croston

MOA has created a space where students are free to ask questions, try new things, and network with industry professionals across the conservation and outdoor industry. Their dedication to making the outdoors accessible to everyone and their goal of “Uniting Communities for Joy and Conservation” is truly embodied in this important event.

“MOA believes in the unity of humanity and in fostering authentic connections through shared experiences in the natural world,” Durrell shared with me. “The joy of seeing individuals connect with dogs, sporting traditions, and conservation leadership reaffirms our mission and fills us with pride. The unity and diversity we witness at MOA Fest are reminders that the outdoors is a place for all to cherish and a place for collective care and stewardship.”

For more information about MOA and events it offers, click here.

Banner image of Durrell Smith with bird dog credit MOA.

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by: Ryan Lockwood

posted in: Ambassadors

October 23, 2024

In The Arena: Capt. Paul Dixon

TRCP’s “In the Arena” series highlights the individual voices of hunters and anglers who, as Theodore Roosevelt so famously said, strive valiantly in the worthy cause of conservation.

Paul Dixon

Hometown: East Hampton, N.Y.
Occupation: Saltwater fly fishing guide who owns Dixon’s To The Point Charters, offering fly fishing for stripers and bluefish off Montauk, N.Y., and for bonefish, permit, and tarpon in the Florida Keys.
Conservation credentials: Dixon is a past board member and current Advisory Council member of the conservation nonprofit Bonefish & Tarpon Trust (BTT) – a TRCP partner – and is responsible for helping to raise millions of dollars for marine conservation efforts. He has long been a vocal champion for striped bass conservation.

Captain Paul Dixon is nothing less than a star in the guiding space in Montauk, off the east end of Long Island, and in the Florida Keys. He essentially wrote the book on sight fishing for striped bass in the Northeastern U.S. and is the main character in author Peter Kaminsky’s celebrated 2002 book The Moon Pulled Up an Acre of Bass. Dixon has been featured on ESPN’s fishing shows Guide House: Montauk, The Walker’s Cay Chronicles and Spanish Fly; in the Millhouse Podcast; and in articles in The New York Times, Outdoor Life, The Miami Herald, New York (Magazine), Salt Water Sportsman, and Field and Stream. Dixon’s client list has included such celebrity anglers as Roger Waters (the bassist for Pink Floyd) and renowned Florida fisherman Flip Pallot. He’s Orvis-endorsed and named among the top 50 charter captains by Salt Water Sportsman. Perhaps most importantly, he’s used his considerable influence in angling circles to forward fish conservation efforts. In 2021 he was given the Izaak Walton Award from the American Museum of Fly Fishing, and in 2022, BTT bestowed him the Lefty Kreh Award for Lifetime Achievement in Conservation.

Here is his story.

Dixon poling as an angler releases a striper. Credit: The Anglers Lens

My mother put me on a dock with a dropline on Balboa Island in California when I was three years old. Almost every weekend I spent on a head boat in Southern California or in a duck blind.

My whole family was steeped in hunting and fishing. As a lieutenant in the Air Force, my father was stationed in Alaska. His job was to open up fishing camps for the officers stationed on the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line [of Cold War radar stations] in 1952. He opened up the first camps in the Brooks Range on the Nac Nac River. My grandfather was a member of the Catalina Island Tuna Club in the 1930s and had his own duck club in Palmdale, Calif. He fished with author Zane Grey and singer Bing Crosby. So I grew up with great stories of outdoor adventures and dreamed of creating my own.

When I graduated from high school I was offered a job at the Wild Rose Ranch on Henry’s Lake in Idaho. Upon arrival the old timers told me, “We don’t spin fish here, kid. We fly fish,” and so the passion began. I had no nearby rivers or lakes so I began fly fishing in saltwater. I moved east in the mid-80s with the dream of opening my own fly fishing business and began Dixon’s Sporting Life, a fly fishing store in East Hampton, N.Y. I bought a flats skiff and began chasing striped bass.

“My biggest concern currently is that striped bass, again, are being depleted from all the commercial and recreational overfishing of the last 20 years.”

I have so many great memories of outdoor adventures with my father and family, but the most recent memories with my own sons come to mind. Notably, my son Andrew’s first tarpon, after 30 minutes and 10 jumps, came off, and Andrew says, “Damn they’re strong. I’m sort of glad he came off.” Recently, my oldest son, Austen, came striper fishing with me, and he caught 10 fish by 8:30 a.m., all of them over 30 pounds — a truly biblical morning.

Dixon’s son, Austen, with a Long Island striped bass. Credit: Paul Dixon

I have fished in many wonderful places all over the world, but I have not yet fished in Alaska. After hearing throughout my young life of fishing in Alaska from my father, I have harbored the dream of going there myself, with my own sons, and now have planned a trip for August 2025.

Dixon releasing a tarpon in the Florida Keys. Credit: Paul Dixon

I got involved with conservation when I moved east and realized that my dream fish, the striped bass, had been fished out. By the time that I opened my store in the early ’90s, the striped bass came roaring back after a 10-year fishing moratorium, one of the greatest conservation success stories in America. In a short period of time, however, the regulations started changing and, slowly but surely, you could see the effects on the fishery. I started going to fishery hearings to voice my concern about the fate of stripers and have been fighting the battle ever since. My ongoing conservation efforts are a way of preserving the fishery that has brought so much pleasure and excitement to my life for so many decades.

Dixon holding stripers for clients. Credit: Paul Dixon

For a long time, the biggest conservation challenge in our area was the restoration of the menhaden, which were being decimated by the factory ships. To deal the problem, the ships were outlawed from fishing in New York’s state waters. The recovery of menhaden was quickly evident from the abundance of whales, sharks, bass, and dolphin that were now feeding on menhaden up and down the coast. My biggest concern currently is that striped bass, again, are being depleted from all the commercial and recreational overfishing of the last 20 years.

Dixon with a bonefish on the flats in the Keys. Credit: Paul Dixon

It’s imperative for those of us who really love to hunt and fish to become involved in the preservation of the natural world. When I was 15 years old, I went with my father on a long-range fishing trip in search of albacore, 100 miles offshore. Leaving the harbor, my father said, “I remember when I used to catch albacore right off that jetty.”

I never want to say to my kids, “I remember when,” with fishing and hunting.

by: Ryan Lockwood

posted in: Ambassadors

June 18, 2024

In the Arena: Jamie Dahl

TRCP’s “In the Arena” series highlights the individual voices of hunters, anglers, and conservationists who, as Theodore Roosevelt so famously said, strive valiantly in the worthy cause of conservation.

Jamie Dahl

Hometown: Fort Collins, CO
Occupation: Assistant Professor, Human Dimensions of Natural Resources, Colorado State University
Conservation credentials: Natural resources educator and forester who uses fieldwork experiences to instill a conservation ethic – and an appreciation for hunting and angling’s role in conservation efforts – in the next generation.

Jamie Dahl is a dyed-in-the-wool outdoorswoman of Pennsylvania roots. She’s been everything from a certified wildland firefighter and chainsaw course instructor to a professional forester and volunteer coordinator. In her personal life, she’s a hiker, hunter, angler, and mother mentoring two sons on sporting ethics and natural resources stewardship. Her career currently centers on teaching college students how our natural environment and social justice issues connect to everything and everyone.

Here is her story.

Photo Credit: Bill Cotton/Colorado State University

One of my most memorable hunts came while turkey hunting with my husband in Colorado. Being from Pennsylvania, we were still figuring out turkey hunting in the West (really, we still are). We were sitting in some ponderosa pines on public land in the Estes Park area, where we often heard gobblers, but most commonly far off or on the next slope. That morning when we heard the gobbler my husband and I got set. He made a good mouth call and started to call the gobbler in. The bird was responding, getting closer.

Eventually, he came into view. It was my first time seeing the full-on strut, colors, and performance so close. The gobbler’s colors were so striking.

“There’s nothing quite like the quick adrenaline rush when you hear that gobble on a crisp spring morning.”

I never had a clean shot because several hens protected that gobbler. It seemed like they knew it was a trick. They blocked and surrounded that gobbler the entire time, who just strutted and seemed to be clueless. There’s nothing quite like the quick adrenaline rush when you hear that gobble on a crisp spring morning.

I actually started hunting later in life. My uncle hunted throughout my childhood, and though I was not interested back then, I would often eat the meat he harvested. When I went to Penn State University to study forestry, my boyfriend at the time hunted, as did his family. I would sometimes join them in late-muzzleloader season in Pennsylvania to just observe.

I later met my husband, Chris, at PSU, who also grew up hunting. He and his family were also supportive of my interest. Eventually, a Penn State colleague invited me to participate in a special hunter education program for students and faculty called “Conservation Leaders for Tomorrow.” That program gave me the knowledge and skills to feel more confident and truly start hunting in my early 20s.

My favorite time to hunt is still late-muzzleloader deer season in Pennsylvania, with family. The family part is the key. My husband’s family and friends have an awesome tradition of gathering during that season, particularly the first week, which is late December and January in Pennsylvania, so it can be very cold. If we’re lucky, there’s snow. I harvested my first deer there with a flintlock muzzleloader, a special experience, and friends and family were right there.

We hunt in small groups and generally stop for a hot lunch together at someone’s home. The social part is what makes it memorable. There are usually three generations participating, and since we live in Colorado now, we especially cherish times when we can join. If we are lucky enough to harvest a deer, we process it together and folks still in need will share the meat. If we aren’t lucky? Hunting and fishing licenses and equipment dollars help pay for conservation, so I joke in the many seasons I don’t harvest an animal that I still did my part to support conservation.

Besides hunting and fishing for fun, I work in environmental communications and education. So when I think of challenges to conservation my brain goes to the need for changing behavior related to the land, air, and water we’re all connected to. In Colorado, we have extreme recreation pressure, climate change, pressure on limited resources, wildland fire, and habitat and species loss. But the real challenge is getting people to understand these complexities, so they want to take day-to-day actions to help.

As I discuss with the students I teach at Colorado State University (CSU), the environment and social justice connect to everything and everyone. How can we provide solid natural resources education and messaging to get people to conserve and steward this one planet? To get everyone to care about climate change? We all have a stake in it, yet they are complex issues that we do not all agree on. We need all different types of people involved, or we will not find practical solutions that fit. Some groups have historically been left out of the decision-making, and that has to change.

Our own tactics to communicate about environmental problems are often lacking; most conservation professionals are not trained in communication and outreach. There are also barriers for some to access the outdoors; this is another key area that gets overlooked. Who is participating, and who is not? Why? Where is the decision-making power? These are some questions I like to ask. I do not have many women friends who hunt (and I look for them); when I hunt and fish, I also do not tend to see much racial and ethnic diversity, though that is very slowly changing.

“If you’ve ever harvested your own food, you can likely connect to a greater appreciation for it.”

The fact is hunting and angling participation has decreased in recent decades. There are many reasons for this, but one is that many families and youth are further removed from the outdoors. There is also research that shows folks’ value orientation is changing. I respect those who say hunting and fishing are not for them; however, if you work in natural resources and the environment, it is essential to understand these activities as conservation tools.

People are more likely to care about the environment, and to vote for and volunteer for it, if they are exposed in their youth. In our household, both parents hunt, so our children (ages 10 and 4) are exposed to the harvest of game. Our oldest son has been interested in hunting and fishing since he was a toddler, and being outside keeps us off our electronic devices.

He especially loves fishing. It is an activity the whole family can easily access and presents a challenge. We learn things together when we do it: what bait or lure do we need, where are the fish today, how do we take care of a fish if we catch one requiring release, and, if we keep one, how will we clean and cook it? Youth gain many important benefits from this experience.

If you’ve ever harvested your own food, you can likely connect to a greater appreciation for it. We know food does not just appear in plastic wrap at the grocery store. We scout, hike, and practice our aim or cast to potentially harvest some of our dinner for the day or the year. And we appreciate the sacrifice of the animal to help sustain us.

I’ll take a day in the woods over a device any time.

Banner photo courtesy of Jamie Dahl

Learn more about nature-based solutions to climate change through habitat conservation.

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by: Dan Morgan

posted in: Ambassadors

September 22, 2023

Hit a Home Run for Conservation

New York Mets First Baseman Pete Alonso has a passion for hunting, fishing, and giving back.

You may know Pete Alonso as the two-time Home Run Derby Champion, three-time Major League Baseball All-Star, and the first basemen for the New York Mets, but did you know he was named the July 2023 Most Valuable Philanthropist by MLB’s Players Trust and has been a staunch supporter of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership since his rookie season in 2019?

MLB’s Players Trust recognizes players whose efforts have made a positive impact on the causes and communities personal to them. Over the course of the regular season, the Players Trust bestows three Most Valuable Philanthropist (MVP) awards to celebrate those who have demonstrated a giving spirit and positive social impact beyond the baseball field. Pete Alonso was recognized in July 2023 with the MVP award for his tireless work with the Alonso Foundation and for supporting causes he cares about – such as the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.

Off the field, Alonso is a lifelong hunter and angler. Fishing in his home waters of Tampa Bay and hunting throughout the country have clearly made a mark on Alonso. This is evident through his charitable work and his advocacy for conservation issues important to the sporting community. Alonso has long supported the conservation work of the TRCP by hosting a fishing trip in Tampa that has been auctioned off at the annual TRCP Capital Conservation Award Dinner, and his zeal for the outdoors has been frequently highlighted in the press, through an appearance on a special episode of MeatEater, hunting mule deer in Colorado with host, and TRCP Board member, Steve Rinella, and his work with TRCP partner, Captains for Clean Water.

Given his altruistic spirit and passion for conservation, it is no surprise that Alonso has partnered with TRCP for the 2023 Fall Sweepstakes, offering everyone the chance to win an expense-paid trip for 2 to Tampa, FL to fish with Pete.

ENTER NOW

On the field, Pete Alonso hits home runs with the best of them, but his passion and support for guaranteeing all Americans quality places to hunt and fish is a homerun for conservation.