Contact: Chad Richardson
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 763-233-7138
New wolf curator hired at International Wolf Center
Center’s longtime curator to remain on staff to assist with the transition
A new wolf curator in training has joined the staff at the International Wolf Center. The hire was announced by the Center’s current Wolf Curator, Lori Schmidt.
Giselle Narvaez Rivera began work at the Center on Jan. 23.
Schmidt will remain on staff, full-time, throughout the year to help with the transition and training period.
While this role is new for Narvaez Rivera, she is not new at the Center.
Schmidt and Narvaez Rivera first met in 2014 when Narvaez Rivera was a wolf ethology student at the Center.
“While graduate school opportunities led her down a different path, her passion for wolves and the Center’s educational mission remained strong,” Schmidt said. “In the short time she has been employed, we already have some positive greetings from the wolves through the fence. The process of integrating into the pack and gaining the wolves’ trust will take several months.”
From 2013-2019, Narvaez Rivera was a research assistant for the Monkey Bridge Project, conducting, analyzing and interpreting primate behavior. She was also an animal caretaker in 2013 and 2015 at the Jaguar Rescue Center in Costa Rica, where she gained diverse, hands-on experience in animal care. Narvaez Rivera has extensive teaching experience creating curricular content, advising and mentoring undergraduate students and fostering students’ commitment to lifelong learning.
Narvaez Rivera earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Animal Ecology in 2015 and her Masters of Arts in Biological Anthropology in 2017 from Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. Her Master’s thesis involved assessing conflict resolution between residents in Gandoca, Costa Rica, and three neotropical primates.
Among many other awards, she is the recipient of the 2019 Andrews Fellowship and the Environmental Research Award from Purdue University, where she was pursuing her PhD in Anthropology. She is fluent in English and Spanish and has a strong understanding of cultural diversity.
The International Wolf Center advances the survival of wolf populations by teaching about wolves, their relationship to wildlands and the human role in their future. For more information about the Center, visit wolf.org.
New York Officials: DNA Confirms Wolf Killed in 2021
From Grand View Outdoors:
DNA tests confirmed that a licensed New York hunter killed a wolf during the 2021 coyote season, state officials said. New York State Department of Environmental Conservation officials confirmed an animal killed by a hunter in Cherry Valley, Otsego County, was a wolf.
Initial DNA analysis completed in summer 2022 determined the wild canid to be most closely identified as an Eastern coyote. The hunter voluntarily submitted DNA for further analysis to Dr. Bridgett vonHoldt, Associate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University, as part of a joint research effort by multiple parties.
Click here for the full story.
Save the wolf, EU environment ministers urge Brussels
From Politico:
EU environment ministers are howling that the European Commission should do more to protect wolves.
Twelve of the bloc’s environment ministers reacted to a European Parliament resolution that called to downgrade the gray wolf’s protection status to help livestock farmers, by urging the Commission to preserve its place as a protected species.
Click here for the full story.
New wolf curator hired at International Wolf Center
Contact: Chad Richardson
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 763-233-7138
New wolf curator hired at International Wolf Center
Center’s longtime curator to remain on staff to assist with the transition
A new wolf curator in training has joined the staff at the International Wolf Center. The hire was announced by the Center’s current Wolf Curator, Lori Schmidt.
Giselle Narvaez Rivera began work at the Center on Jan. 23.
Schmidt will remain on staff, full-time, throughout the year to help with the transition and training period.
While this role is new for Narvaez Rivera, she is not new at the Center.
Schmidt and Narvaez Rivera first met in 2014 when Narvaez Rivera was a wolf ethology student at the Center.
“While graduate school opportunities led her down a different path, her passion for wolves and the Center’s educational mission remained strong,” Schmidt said. “In the short time she has been employed, we already have some positive greetings from the wolves through the fence. The process of integrating into the pack and gaining the wolves’ trust will take several months.”
From 2013-2019, Narvaez Rivera was a research assistant for the Monkey Bridge Project, conducting, analyzing and interpreting primate behavior. She was also an animal caretaker in 2013 and 2015 at the Jaguar Rescue Center in Costa Rica, where she gained diverse, hands-on experience in animal care. Narvaez Rivera has extensive teaching experience creating curricular content, advising and mentoring undergraduate students and fostering students’ commitment to lifelong learning.
Narvaez Rivera earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Animal Ecology in 2015 and her Masters of Arts in Biological Anthropology in 2017 from Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. Her Master’s thesis involved assessing conflict resolution between residents in Gandoca, Costa Rica, and three neotropical primates.
Among many other awards, she is the recipient of the 2019 Andrews Fellowship and the Environmental Research Award from Purdue University, where she was pursuing her PhD in Anthropology. She is fluent in English and Spanish and has a strong understanding of cultural diversity.
The International Wolf Center advances the survival of wolf populations by teaching about wolves, their relationship to wildlands and the human role in their future. For more information about the Center, visit wolf.org.
Germany: Fate of wolf that killed von der Leyen’s pony to be decided today
From Politico:
In the next few hours, it will be decided if the wolf that killed the pony of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will survive.
On September 1, 2022, a wolf used the cover of darkness to sneak into a well-guarded compound in northwest Germany and kill Dolly, the 30-year-old pony belonging to von der Leyen.
Click here for the full story.
Idaho’s wolf numbers are declining. Fish and Game hopes to whittle population by 60%
From the Idaho Statesman:
The Idaho Department of Fish and Game estimates wolf populations have dropped, and officials said they hope to implement a plan that would slash numbers to a fraction of the current population. In a Fish and Game Commission meeting last week, agency officials presented a new wolf population estimate and debuted a draft for a wolf management plan that will likely be approved this spring.
Click here for the full story.
Italy: The incredible rescue of a wolf that fell into a stream
From MSN.com:
Firefighters in Verona (Italy) rescued a wolf that ended up in a waterway, in the city center. Initially mistaken for a dog, the wolf, exhausted, had stopped on the branches of a fig tree and then ended up in the ditch.
Click here for the full story.
US plans end to wolf protections, critics say it’s premature
From News8000.com:
U.S. wildlife officials plan to lift protections for gray wolves across the Lower 48 states, re-igniting the legal battle over a predator that’s run into conflicts with farmers and ranchers after rebounding in some regions, an official told The Associated Press.
Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt announced the proposal during a Wednesday speech at the North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference in Denver, a weeklong conservation forum for researchers, government officials and others, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Spokesman Gavin Shire said in an interview with the AP.
Click here for the full story.
IDFG: Wolf population down 13 percent in Idaho
From KXLY.com in Spokane, Washington:
IDAHO — According to the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, the wolf population in the state has gone down 13 percent.
Surveys show that Idaho’s wolf population estimate in 2022 has gone down 206 wolves compared to 2021 estimated. IDFG says these estimates are based on camera surveys measuring the population at its annual peak in the summer.
Click here for the full story.
Asha the wolf, captured in the U.S., to be shipped to Mexico
From Reuters.com:
TAOS, N.M., Jan 25 (Reuters) – Environmentalists on Wednesday protested U.S. government plans to transfer an endangered Mexican gray wolf captured in New Mexico to Mexico, saying it should be allowed to roam free and repopulate the Rockies.
The she-wolf, named Asha by schoolchildren, was captured near Taos, New Mexico, on Sunday after heading further north than any other Mexican wolf recorded since the species’ 1998 reintroduction after near extinction.
Click here for the full story.
Czech conservationists return wolf struck by car back into the wild
From expats.cz:
Although experts doubted its chances of survival, an injured wolf made a surprising recovery and is once again wandering in its natural habitat in the mountains near the Czech-German border.
The first recovery of its kind in Czechia, this was a learning experience for conservation groups now better prepared to handle a similar incident in the future.
Click here for the full story.