Natalie Elkins
MI Department of Natural Resources
Natalie Elkins is the PreK–12 Education Specialist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources in Lansing. She previously served with Michigan State Parks as Training Officer and Marketing and PR Coordinator. She holds a B.S. in Fisheries and Wildlife and an M.S. in Park, Recreation and Tourism Resources–Environmental Education from Michigan State University, as well as Environmental Educator Certification. As Michigan’s Project WILD state coordinator, she received the Council for Environmental Education’s 2014 Rudolph J. H. Schafer Outstanding Coordinator Award.
She is active on numerous state and national education, conservation, and outdoor recreation committees and frequently represents the DNR at educator and naturalist conferences. She leads Michigan’s Becoming an Outdoors Woman program and facilitates collaborative work groups. Her extensive community involvement includes leadership with the Michigan Alliance for Environmental and Outdoor Education, local parks and recreation, youth soccer, and her community school board. Outside of work, she enjoys traveling, boating, reading, soccer, trying new restaurants, spending time with family and friends, and Broadway shows.
All Sessions by Natalie Elkins
Stewardship Through Hunting, A Love Story
Deer overbrowsing is stripping habitat value from Washtenaw County’s parks and conservation lands, undoing years of stewardship work. In response, Washtenaw County Parks partnered with the DNR’s Becoming an Outdoors Woman program to build a mentoring pipeline that turns interested women, at any experience level, into confident hunters. The program combines training, community building, and a full season of guided hunts, resulting in harvest numbers significant enough to give overbrowsed habitats room to recover. Hear about the partnerships, planning, and logistics behind this program, along with what it takes to recruit new hunters in ways that strengthen both healthy natural areas and the state’s recreation economy.