Dr. Anja Heister is a former executive director, an experienced campaigner for animals, and a life-long animal rights activist. A co-founder of Footloose Montana, a nonprofit organization working toward an end of trapping on public land in Montana, Anja also created and then taught the organization’s popular trap-release program for several years—workshops offered to the public at no cost to learn about trapping regulations and how to free one’s companion animal from a trap or snare. Montana is a state where commercial exploitation of wild animals is big business, however, Anja was a leader and instrumental in two state-wide citizen initiatives, which raised great awareness of the need to end trapping of wild animals for their fur. 

Originally from Germany, Anja has travelled internationally for several years, including a six-months long backpack trip through East Africa, where she had the opportunity to do some conservation work with elephants in Amboseli National Park in Kenya. Anja has a master’s degree in biology (human genetics and anthropology) from the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe University in Frankfurt/Germany, and a PhD in interdisciplinary studies specializing in wildlife conservation, policy and animal ethics from the University of Montana in Missoula, Montana.

In 2022, Anja’s book, Beyond the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation: From Lethal to Compassionate Conservation, was published as part of the Palgrave Macmillan’s Animal Ethics Series (https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-14149-2).

Anja currently works as an independent researcher and writer and is co-authoring a second book that addresses conservation and a vegan lifestyle.