BETSY GAINES QUAMMEN is a historian and conservationist who lives in Bozeman, Mt.  She received a doctorate in Environmental History from Montana State University in 2017, her dissertation focusing on Mormon settlement and public land conflicts. She has studied various religious traditions over the years, with particular attention to how cultures view landscape and wildlife. The rural American west, pastoral communities of northern Mongolia, and the grasslands of East Africa have been her main areas of interest. After college in Colorado, caretaking for a bed and breakfast in Mosier, Oregon and serving breakfasts at a café in Kanab, Utah, Betsy has settled in Bozeman, Montana where she now lives with her husband, writer David Quammen, two huge dogs, an overweight cat and a pretty big python named Boots.