About Us
Forest Defense was founded in 2025 to protect forest health through practical, community-based deer management - and to get sustainably sourced protein to families and food programs that need it. It is entirely volunteer-run. (Read more in US News.)
Masha Zabara
Co-Founder & Executive DirectorMasha Zabara is a life-long, passionate community organizer. They own a small business and community space which has raised and distributed over $120,000 for Hudson Valley organizations and individuals. Previously, Masha served as an internship director for the MBA in Sustainability at Bard College, teaching students from around the world about social media’s influence on global discourse.
Belarusian-born, Masha originally moved to the US as a classical cellist and now loves organizing community dinners, neighborhood groups, movie screenings, and musical jams.
Dayle McLeod
Organizer, Fundraising Lead & Sacred Hunting AdvisorDayle is a multi-disciplinary artist, documentarian, film producer, Birth & Death doula, and traditional South African Sangoma. Originally from Ontatio, Canada, she weaves sacred indigenous wisdom into our ecological hunting endeavors.
Dayle has a passion for creating deep, soulful relations to with the land, food sovereignty for our communities and keeping the Hudson Valley beautiful & covered in wildflowers.
Zoe Evans
Co-FounderZoe Evans is a native plant lover and community advocate who turns research into practical action. She’s a Cornell Master Naturalist with degrees in neuroscience and translational science, focused on helping communities restore biodiversity and care for the land in their own backyards.
Zoe grew up in New York City reading Boy Scout books and dreaming about the woods. Today she lives in Dutchess County, where she hunts, processes her own meat, and works to evolve a conservation ethic that fits today’s ecological realities.
Tessa Husted
Communications & StorytellingTessa is an environmental policy graduate from Middlebury College with a deep passion for sustainability and writing. She grew up hiking the local Catskill Mountains and is excited about using storytelling to protect our forests. Tessa writes for the Forest Defense Substack, puts together our newsletter, and is currently creating a short-form audio series about the deer overpopulation crisis.
Kwesi Peters
Social Media Lead & Content CreatorKwesi is a cinematographer and content producer with 15+ years of experience crafting wedding films and producing short-form video content. His passion for winter sports led him to discover more ways to connect with nature and document the journey with his camera. He has created many travel vlogs about hiking and a web series for beginner gardeners and woodworkers. As part of the Forest Defense team, he hopes to deepen his relationship with nature and showcase a more ecological way of hunting to the world."
Jessica Dupont
Deer Management ExpertJessica is as an ecological huntress, ecologist, sustainability scientist, and policy researcher, and currently works as the special projects coordinator for Sustainable Hudson Valley. She is a hands-on advisor at Forest Defense overseeing decision-making.
During her master’s studies at Bard for Climate Science and Policy, she studied how to best empower hunters to harvest more deer and wrote her thesis on it. She has since presented her research at multiple scientific conferences, and is excited to weave together community empowerment efforts with ethical stewardship of our “natural resources” at Forest Defense.
Laurie Husted
Organizer, Advisor & LiaisonLaurie is the Chief Sustainability Officer at Bard College, the fiscal sponsor of Forest Defense. She is grateful for 25 years of living in the Hudson Valley, where she is able to volunteer as a climate advocate and conservationist, while working at the College to identify solutions aimed at enhancing our shared well-being on a healthy planet.