About

Ralph Maughan – Founder, Editor, Contributor – The Wildlife News
Dr. Ralph Maughan is a specialist in natural resource and environmental policies and politics. He is not a biologist. He was born, raised and has lived in Utah and Idaho his entire life. He has many years experience in Western public land and environmental issues. Maughan has written several hiking guidebooks in addition to academic books and articles. Maughan is the President of the Wolf Recovery Foundation. Founded in 1986 as a nonprofit 501.C.3 tax deductible organization, the Wolf Recovery Foundation is dedicated to the restoration of wolves in the Rockies.  Dr. Maughan also serves as a Director of Western Watersheds Project a group that works to influence and improve public lands management in 8 western states with a primary focus on the negative impacts of livestock grazing on 250,000,000 acres of western public lands.

Ralph Maughan can be reached at rmaughan2(at)cableone.net

Ken Cole – Contributor, Editor – The Wildlife News
Ken Cole, Western Watershed Project’s National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Coordinator, is a 5th generation Idahoan who grew up accompanying his father, who worked for the Forest Service, on outings in central Idaho. It was during this time that he developed an appreciation of and respect for the natural environment and gained firsthand knowledge of the destructive impact of livestock grazing on public lands.

Ken has a degree in Biology from Idaho State University and studied Fisheries Resource Management at the University of Idaho. While in school, he worked summers as a crew leader doing field work and stream inventories for the U.S. Forest Service and for Idaho Fish and Game, collecting data on the now threatened White Sturgeon. He was also a fly-fishing guide for private outfitters in McCall and Yellowpine, Idaho.

After graduation and prior to joining WWP, Ken was a Biological Technician for Idaho Fish and Game. During this time he established a locally-adapted brood population of steelhead on a tributary of the Upper Salmon, processed biological information, tagged and did salmon counts on the South Fork of the Salmon and, at the Nampa Fisheries Research Laboratory, conducted fin-ray aging studies of Snake River Chinook.

An avid fly fisherman, wildlife enthusiast, and photographer, Ken is a past Board Member of the Wolf Recovery Foundation and is currently on the Board of the Buffalo Field Campaign.

Ken Cole can be reached at ken(@)westernwatersheds.org

Brian Ertz – Contributor, Editor – The Wildlife News
Brian Ertz has a degree in Political Science.  Raised in Idaho, Ertz currently resides in the Big Wood River Watershed of central Idaho.   Brian serves as  media director of Western Watersheds Project.

Brian Ertz can be reached at brian(at)westernwatersheds.org

Kathie Lynch – Contributor - The Wildlife News
Kathie Lynch’s passion is watching wolves in Yellowstone National Park. She enjoys helping park visitors learn about the wolves, especially their behavior and individual life stories. Kathie is on the Board of the Wolf Recovery Foundation.

Louise Wagenknecht – Contributor – The Wildlife News
Louise Wagenknecht was born in Boise and raised in the Klamath Mountains of northern California.  She earned a B.A. in English with a minor in animal husbandry from California State University at Chico in 1971, and joined the U.S. Forest Service in 1973.

In 1985-86 she studied botany, forestry, soils and range management at California State University at Humboldt.  She worked on three Forests in three Regions and focused on silviculture, range management, and writing/editing.

She retired in 2005.  In the early 1990s, she began writing essays for High Country News; her work has also appeared in many anthologies.  Her memoir about her childhood in a company lumber town, White Poplar, Black Locust, was published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2003.  A second memoir, Light on the Devils: Coming of Age on the Klamath, will be published by Oregon State University Press in October 2011.

She lives in Leadore, Idaho, with her husband Bob, two dogs, and a cat, all of whom watch wildlife.