Tovar is a writer and qualitative researcher. His essays on hunting, wild food, and conservation have appeared in The Atlantic, Aeon, High Country News, Northern Woodlands, Bugle, and elsewhere.
He is the author of The Mindful Carnivore: A Vegetarian’s Hunt for Sustenance. A second book, on wild foodways in America, is underway.
Selected essays
In Pursuit of Wild Places and Wild Food — Covers (2025)
What matters to many of us is not merely the seeking, taking, and eating of birds and mammals. What matters are the landscapes of meaning we traverse as we hunt.
Trophy or Tribute? — Bugle (2026)
I stood back to contemplate the mass of bone: white skull standing out in contrast against cherry hues, dark antlers against light wall. What, exactly, had I created?
A Deer for Ryan — National Deer Association (2025)
In the dream, I was hunting with Brady. On waking, I remembered: he had died nearly three months earlier.
Devouring the World — Aeon (2012)
Once upon a time, I believed in the tidy taxonomy of the grocery store.
Ma’iingan and Other Cultural Wolves — International Wolf (2017)
To listen and think in these ways, we must dig deep. If everyone involved can do this, perhaps we can begin to treat each other with mutual respect.
A Caretaker and a Killer — The Atlantic (2014)
I stood in the snow, struggling to digest what I had heard. I found it inconceivable that someone could be both an environmentalist and a hunter, a caretaker and a killer.
The Mindful Carnivore: A Vegetarian’s Hunt for Sustenance
The Mindful Carnivore traces Tovar’s unlikely journey from longtime vegan to hunter: a reckoning with questions of food, ethics, and what it means to participate in the living world.
“Cerulli sets off into the woods to face a hard truth: Death is integral to life, killing part of sustaining.” —Audubon