Meet Hawken Carlton | Educational Herpetologist and Botanist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Hawken Carlton and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Hawken, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
I’ve never been one to go with the flow of someon else’s intentions; I prefer writing my own story, and taking a different path. The passions I have are for aspects of nature that are little-known, little-understood or often purposefully misunderstood by general society, and I wanted to do something that could bring awareness, appreciation, and a desire for conservation to other people so that the things I love might stick around longer in our world. I grow plants and breed reptiles to sell in order to fund the building of a reference database, write articles, create videos and showcases that allow people to see things they’ve never seen before and interact with them in new ways.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My work is a freelance system, a personal business centered around educational creation and passion for the natural world. Nothing has been easy about it; trying to pave your own way is a slow and expensive process, best done when you have the support of family and friends around you, but the important part is continuing to strive for the next step, whether that’s reaching a particular rate of sales to keep things afloat, or gaining a certain number of subscribers or followers on a channel, etc. And when you’re specifically fighting against long-held myths about things you love or the apathy of unawareness it gets even harder, because in order to gain support for a plant no one knows exists or an animal the world loves to hate it’s an uphill battle to not only undo generations of entrenched beliefs or confusion about why something is important but also rebuild respect if not appreciation or love for the thing. I’ve reached into multiple outlets to try and push this goal: I sell things on multiple sites to have the broadest exposure, I work in many social media platforms to bring education to the most people I can, and I am constantly working to care for the animals and plants I have while also creating artistic designs to represent them, videos to showcase them, and more, and it’s a neverending cycle of keeping the creation going.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Where I’m going to run is a little different from a lot of other people: I avoid the city, entirely. Let me take you to the world of nature, to see the ephemeral creeks of Lory State Park, have lunch at Vern’s along the way, drive the back roads of the Great Plains to see wildlife on the move. Let’s drive to the heights of Rocky Mountain National Park to see the alpine wildflowers in June (and stop by You Need Pie! in Estes Park for dinner), travel to the mountains just north to find endangered wood frogs and boreal toads among the moose-favored wetlands, or head south to see the canyons of the Comanche National Grasslands, the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, or the great carved plateaus of our Western Slope.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I’d like to dedicate this to my mother, who has supported my passions and endeavors despite all the many headaches I bring along with me; long-suffering and patient with my antics and creative whims.

Website: www.carltoncarnivores.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/carltoncarnivores

Facebook: facebook.com/carltoncarnivores

Youtube: youtube.com/@carltoncarnivores

Image Credits
Hawken Carlton