Dale Gentry

Dale Gentry’s love for spending time in the conifer forests of southern Idaho near where he grew up, led to a calling to pursue a career in bird conservation.  Studying North American bird communities in graduate school quickly revealed that many species are declining, and the main driver is habitat loss.  To him, a career in bird conservation has come to mean looking after the forest habitats that birds require.  Dale spent 25+ years involved in that pursuit through education, research, and habitat conservation; he is now serving with Audubon as Director of Conservation for Minnesota, Iowa, and Missouri.

Over the years, Dale has had some exciting career experiences.  From serving as field science faculty at the Graduate Program of the Teton Science Schools where he taught community ecology and conservation biology to graduate students in Grand Teton National Park for four years, to leading tropical biology and sustainable farming student trips to the Galapagos and Costa Rica.  Even recently, while directing Audubon’s efforts to conserve the floodplain forest of the Upper Mississippi River, Dale was provided the opportunity to spend June of 2022 conducting bird surveys in the flooded bottomland forests in far southeastern Minnesota. 

These past experiences highly complement Dale’s current role with Audubon. He aspires to use his knowledge and understanding of conservation to ensure that the future forests of Minnesota will contain growing populations of the many bird species of conservation-need that breed in and migrate through Minnesota.  At the same time, he hopes Minnesota’s forests will continue to provide the people of Minnesota with an abundance of recreational opportunities and forest products. Because Dale sees MFRC as playing a role in making these hopes a reality, he started attending Council meetings remotely.  There he observed an opportunity to help ensure that Minnesota’s forests continue to provide good habitat for birds.

Dale now serves as one of two Environmental Organization Representative on the MFRC.  He is connected to his stakeholder group through the 25,000+ active Audubon members in Minnesota.  He regularly gives talks and sits on panels with Audubon members where he appreciates the questions and guidance the members provide about their experience with bird habitats in Minnesota.  

To connect with Dale Gentry, contact him at dale.gentry@audubon.org. The Minnesota Forest Resources Council exists to support and advocate for Minnesotans like you! Please join us for our bimonthly public meetings, with Zoom links available via our calendar. We hope to see you there.