Dr. Wayne Linklater is the Chair and Professor of the Department of Environmental Studies at California State University. Wayne completed his Ph.D studying the Kaimanawa feral horses in New Zealand after completing a masters degree in freshwater science. We discuss how we ended up following a remarkably similar path in our academic careers, conservation science as a discipline, and the challenges and shortcomings of New Zealand's ambitious "Predator-free 2050" objective.