Leo Miranda-Castro

Program Manager

Leo Miranda-Castro is a lifelong career wildlife manager and conservationist. At the end of 2022, he retired as the Southeast Regional Director of the Department of the Interior’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (2018-2022) where oversaw the work of approximately 1,300 federal employees in carrying out the Federal Government’s partnership role in conserving fish, wildlife, and plant resources and their habitats within 10 southeastern states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Leo began his work with the US Fish and Wildlife Service as a Private Lands biologist in his native Puerto Rico, later becoming the national coordinator for the private lands program and then Program Supervisor of the Service’s Chesapeake Bay Field Office in Annapolis, Maryland. He then was selected as the Assistant Regional Director of the Southeast Region’s Ecological Services Program. An advocate of public-private conservation partnerships, he points to the success of the shade-grown coffee industry, sustainable timber production and protecting military bases buffer zones in conservation as examples of how government organizations and private landowners can work together to achieve real "win/win" outcomes for people and for wildlife.

On any given weekend, you are likely to find Leo in a tree stand or by a river, hunting or fishing with his son, Pablo. Leo attributes much of their shared love of nature and commitment to conservation to the pursuit of these outdoor recreational pastimes, and hunting. 

Leo is a career Senior Executive Service, the highest career-level position in the federal government.  He holds a Bachelor of Science in Marine Biology from the University of Puerto Rico and a Master of Science in Zoology from North Carolina State University. He and his wife Jessica, son Pablo, and their four-legged family members live in west-central Georgia.