Footloose Montana fights to end trapping and other cruelties to wildlife on Montana’s public lands. Anja Heister co-founded the organization in 2007 after an experience that left her shaken: skiing through a forest outside Missoula, Heister and her family came across a trapped pine marten hanging between the trees. “She was caught in a foothold trap and her head was tilted. There was a huge pile of scat underneath, which indicated she had been hanging there for a long, long time,” she recalls. After liberating the animal, the pine martin ran off. “Then, at a distance of maybe 20 meters, she stopped and turned and looked at us. By then, the three of us were in tears.” The experience led Heister, who had recently moved to Montana from Germany, to research the trapping industry. She was shocked by its scale. Heister began the nonprofit after writing a letter to a newspaper and recruiting others who were also outraged over trapping: “Footless Montana put the issue of trapping on the public’s radar.”
Co-founders Dave and Anja at the Footloose Montana table at the Mission Match-Up event in Missoula, MT, March 31, 2026. Photo: courtesy of Footloose Montana.
The organization has since expanded to campaign against other forms of “cruel assaults against wildlife,” Heister explains, listing trophy hunting, wildlife killing contests, and, “coyote whacking”, where animals are chased with snowmobiles and run over. Footloose Montana counts on a closely involved board of five, as well as thousands of supporters. Advancing its cause through education, legal action, and policy advocacy, the organization has led two ballot initiatives, run two polls, offered some 70 free trap-release workshops, and been involved in successful litigation, including to get the wolverine listed as a threatened species. Going forward, the organization plans to re-introduce a bill to require the signposting of traps. Footloose Montana has helped move the dial on ending trapping on public lands: in 2012, its polling showed 46% of Montanans supported a ban – by 2023, that figure had risen to 52%. Whereas previously, the main reason for backing a ban was personal safety, recently, “people list cruelty as their primary concern.”
A Footloose Montana team at the Highway clean up, around 2022. Photo: courtesy of Footloose Montana.