The Wood River Wolf Project Team

Suzanne Asha Stone

Wood River Wolf Project Co-Founder/Steering Committee member & International Wildlife Coexistence Network Inc. CEO

Suzanne has worked for over three decades to restore wolves to the Rockies and Pacific Northwest. Initially, she served as an intern for the Central Idaho Wolf Steering Committee and as a member of the 1995/1996 USA/Canadian Wolf Reintroduction team restoring wolves to Yellowstone National Park and Central Idaho. In 1999, she joined Defenders of Wildlife and oversaw their Rockies wolf compensation program and later led development of coexistence measures and models to minimize losses of livestock and gray wolves in the West. She is the co-founder of the Wood River Wolf Project in Idaho, holds a master's in Wildlife Management and Conflict Resolution from Prescott College. Suzanne has won numerous awards for her leadership in wildlife conflict resolution and coexistence and been featured in countless articles and interviews. She is the lead author/researcher on our study Adaptive use of nonlethal strategies for minimizing wolf–sheep conflict in Idaho published by the Journal of Mammalogy in 2017. Suzanne’s expertise in nonlethal/coexistence measures to minimize conflicts between wild predators and livestock has assisted similar projects around the world.

Contact: Suzanne@woodriverwolfproject.org

Jim Santa

Community Outreach Co-coordinator and Field Camera Support

My name is Jim Santa. I grew up spending a lot of time exploring the woods, lakes, streams, and rivers of Northern Minnesota. I have always had a passion for the outdoors and wildlife. During college I spent many days fishing the rivers and chasing Steelhead on the north shore of Lake Superior and traveling by canoe through the Boundary Waters and Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario. I worked At the Ski Hut in Duluth and upon graduation found my way to the Wood River Valley and went to work for Sturtevant’s. Some 25+ years later, I’m still here. Now I volunteer for the Wood River Wolf Project. The role of a volunteer community liaison is important for the Wood River Wolf Project in helping raise community awareness about the project, which is providing a valuable resource in helping the community protect its wildlife and livestock values. A community liaison encourages residents to support the project when needed by writing letters of support, funding, attending events, and encouraging county and state’ collaboration with the project.

Corey Graham

Community Outreach Co-coordinator

As community liaisons, both Jim and Corey Graham help establish trust and mutual respect between the community and the Project, and act as a point of contact for feedback, and queries. In practical matters, the Community Outreach Coordinators help identify local stakeholders who can become part of the Project network, help plan meetings, and offer suggestions for opportunities for outreach.  Most importantly, these volunteers are a bridge between the community and the Project ensuring that local influence helps guide the Project’s efforts in a way that continues to uphold the community’s values: peace in the valley, goodwill, and sincere cooperation to the benefit of wildlife and people sharing the landscape

Maxwell McDaniel

Field Manager

First moving to Colorado in 2010, I spent considerable time throughout the US and abroad as a white water and mountain guide. I received a Bachelors in Wildlife Biology from Colorado State University with a focus on behavioral ecology. My work has led to amazing opportunities working with raptors in Teton National Park, coral restoration in the Caribbean, to the Atlas mountains of Morocco.

I assisted with a behavioral study of the Atlas Golden Wolf, where their nomadic herders and practices share many similarities to our pastoralist history here. Before relocating to the valley, I collared and collected newborn elk calf data for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, in an effort to monitor overall health and survival of local Elk herds. After observing similar conflict between wildlife and human environments across the globe, reducing predator and wildlife conflict while encouraging coexistence became my primary passion and interest.

Ava Elliot

Field Technician

Ava came us after serving as a wildlife technician on a Sage Grouse research project through the University of Idaho. On the project she worked in collaboration with ranchers to determine the effect cattle grazing on the Sage Grouse habitat and their nesting success. She also worked as a range technician, conducting vegetation surveys associated with the project. Ava has excellent experience with telemetry and using GPS technology as well as ArcGIS, Survey123, and excel databases. She is fluent in both Spanish and English and brings a positive, hardworking attitude to her position that resonates with everyone on the project.

Wood River Wolf Project Consultants

Dr. Stewart Breck

USDA APHIS National Wildlife Research Center Researcher

Dr. Stewart Breck is a researcher for the USDA APHIS National Wildlife Research Center. His research is focused on carnivore ecology and behavior and minimizing conflict between carnivores and people. Studies include testing nonlethal methods for preventing conflict, measuring the impact of carnivores on livestock, influence of urban environments on carnivore ecology, and population biology and behavioral ecology of carnivores.

Dr. Breck has been a long term consultant for the Wood River Wolf Project and served as co-author on our study published in 2017.

Wood River Wolf Project Steering Committee

Brian Bean

President - Lava Lake Institute for Science & Conservation

Brian Bean is a co-founder of the Lava Lake Institute and co-owner of Lava Lake Land & Livestock and Lava Lake Lamb in South Central Idaho. He and his wife Kathleen founded Lava Lake Ranch in 1999 with the purchase and consolidation of six historic sheep and cattle ranches with the intention of producing and marketing 100% grass-fed and finished lamb while protecting the natural characteristics of the landscape. Their conservation efforts in Idaho began with the donation of a 7,500-acre conservation easement to The Nature Conservancy in 2001.

Today, Brian is working with the Natural Resources Conservation Service and TNC to complete the 11th and 12th conservation easements on Lava Lake Ranch’s deeded lands. When closed, Lava Lake will have permanently protected more than 20,000 bio-diverse acres in the Pioneer Mountains – Craters of the Moon landscape in the High Divide region.

The Beans established the Lava Lake Institute for Science & Conservation in 2004, a non-profit organization that supports conservation research in the Pioneer—Craters area. The Institute serves as the fiscal sponsor for the Wood River Wolf Project, now in its ninth year. Lava Lake is one of several sheep producer members of this successful nonlethal predator control collaborative and Brian serves on the Project’s Steering Committee. Brian also serves on the Board of the Heart of the Rockies Initiative and is active in the Pioneers Alliance.

Brian is a magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Pomona College, where he was a dual major in botany—molecular biochemistry and biophysics and in zoology. Brian was awarded his MBA by the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was a Miller Scholar. Before business school, Brian was a captain in the United States Marine Corps, having served with the 1st Marine Division.

Chris Leman

Trail Specialist & Recreation Enthusiast

Chris is a 30-year resident of the Wood River Valley. In 1996 he helped bring together an all-volunteer trail advocacy group known as Big Wood Backcountry Trails. It represented the interests of non-motorized and motorized trail users in the valley, and the group’s messaging stressed trail etiquette and sharing the trails responsibly. Volunteers with the group contributed thousands of hours of labor to trail maintenance projects, and the organization was an important funding partner in trail construction efforts. Presently, from May through September of each year, Chris works as the Trail Coordinator for the Blaine County Recreation District. In the winter he’s a stay-at-home ski bum.

Betsy Ann Mizell

Wildlife Friendly Communities Coalition

Betsy realized that she wanted to help protect the amazing planet we live on at an early age while traveling to some of the world’s most remote and wild places – exceptional places like Antarctica, Papua New Guinea and the Galapagos. 

Betsy has a B.A. from New England College in environmental studies, with a minor in outdoor leadership. In the years since she graduated from college she has worked around the world and country for various environmental conservation organizations. She is very passionate about protecting Idaho's spectacular public lands, rivers and wildlife.

Francie St. Onge

SV Trekking Outfitter and Guide

Sun Valley Trekking Co-owner, Outfitter and Guide Francie St. Onge has a long history working in environmental education, backcountry exploration, and wildlife ecology. During her years in graduate school Francie had the unique opportunity to work with Dr. Gordon Haber in Denali National Park, helping to observe and gather data about wolves in the Park. She also guided educational tours and gave presentations about wolf ecology and predator-predator interactions.  

For the past 20 years she and her husband, Joe, have been outfitting Sun Valley Trekking with its 6 backcountry ski huts, 2 of which operate as summer huts in the Wood River Wolf Project area. Francie founded and led the first Wolf Ecology Tours in 2007 in collaboration with Defenders of Wildlife and Idaho Conservation League to provide a local, field-based educational program about wolf ecology for the public. Francie continues to run the Sun Valley Mountain Huts business with Joe and staff, while raising 2 daughters and occasionally training for ski marathons. She is especially looking forward to helping the Wood River Wolf Project to start a student wildlife tracking and photography program in spring and summer of 2021.