Heather Tonneson

Heather Abbey Tonneson is the Refuge Manager for the Kaua‘i National Wildlife Refuge Complex, which includes the Kīlauea Point, Hanalei, and Hulē‘ia National Wildlife Refuges.  She started her career with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in July of 2008 in the Ecological Services program, before migrating to the National Wildlife Refuge System program in 2012.  She has worked in 3 different regions for the Service, including California (Legacy Region 8), Alaska (Legacy Region 7) and Kaua‘i (Legacy Region 1, DOI Region 12). Prior to joining the Service, she worked as an environmental educator for the State of California; a researcher and teacher for the University of California, Santa Barbara; a biologist for the Nature Conservancy, and an ecologist consultant for the Foundation for the Survival of the Cofán Indigenous Tribe in Ecuador. 

Heather has a B.S. in Wildlife Biology from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA and an M.S. in Environmental Science and Management, with a specialization in Conservation Planning from Bren School at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Some areas of professional interest include landscape ecology, climate change climate change
Climate change includes both global warming driven by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases and the resulting large-scale shifts in weather patterns. Though there have been previous periods of climatic change, since the mid-20th century humans have had an unprecedented impact on Earth's climate system and caused change on a global scale.

Learn more about climate change , ecosystem services, indigenous cultures, wildlife and conservation biology, adaptive management, conservation planning, connecting people with nature, building and maintaining strong partnerships, and sustainable land use and land use change. In her free time, Heather loves traveling and spending time in the outdoors, fishing, snowboarding, gardening, hiking, surfing, practicing and teaching yoga, and playing at the beach with her twin daughters.