John Davis

John Davis lives with his family in Split Rock Wildway, where he care-takes Hemlock Rock Wildlife Sanctuary when not roaming farther afield. He is Executive Director of The Rewilding Institute; a volunteer land steward for Eddy Foundation, which has secured and opened to the public about 3,000 acres in the eastern Adirondacks; a board member of Champlain Area Trails; and a co-founder of Wildlands Network.

John is the editor of many conservation publications including Rewilding Earth Unplugged: Best of Rewilding Earth 2018 and Rewilding Earth: Best of 2019 and the author of Split Rock Wilday: Scouting the Adirondack Park's Most Diverse Wildlife Corridor and Big, Wild, and Connected: Scouting an Eastern Wildway from Florida to Quebec which chronicles his 7,600-mile traverse of the proposed Eastern Wildway in 2011. His 5,000-mile traverse of the Rocky Mountains from Sonora, Mexico, to British Columbia, Canada, is featured in the film Born to Rewild, a version of which you may view here.

Following John Davis's epic adventure along the traditional movement pathways of species needing room to roam along a 5,000-mile stretch of the Continental Divide, Born to Rewild (directed by Ed George and Bryan Reinhart and produced by Kelly Burke) highlights the challenges wide-ranging species—including pronghorns, cougars, grizzly bears, and Mexican wolves—encounter on their migratory routes, and how those challenges might be mitigated by a continental-scale Western Wildway. The film captures the stresses John endured to achieve his outdoor adventure masterpiece, stresses experienced by wildlife every single day. (Wildlands Network)