Western Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies

The Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (WAFWA) represents 19 states, 3 Canadian provinces and 1 territory. WAFWA represents an area covering nearly 3.7 million square miles of some of North America’s wildest and most scenic areas, encompassing more than 40% of North America and two-thirds of the United States. Founded in 1922 WAFWA was founded to help state fish and game officials in the West who felt the need to join together to solve a series of game management questions they had in common. And as those needs have evolved and changed over the years, so has WAFWA grown, evolved, and changed to meet the needs of conservation and research. We support sound resource management and wildlife conservation and research of keystone species of the West through research and conservation of biodiversity from the deserts of the southwest to the alpine peaks of the north. In recent years, we have also aided other regional and national fish and wildlife associations in nationwide projects to accomplish larger wildlife management goals.

WAFWA Administrative Headquarters
The WAFWA Grants division, headquartered in Boise Idaho, coordinates the various administrative, financial tracking, and reporting of the grants we manage. The individual projects are managed by our project coordinators who are actively employed, or retired from positions in various state fish and wildlife agencies and having years of experience working in natural resource and wildlife management). We rely on their expertise to participate, complete and project manage the research, as well as write reports documenting their research findings while using digital tools as required in the various projects. The association serves as the facilitator between the states in the association and our funding partners of all varieties.

Bill Van Pelt, started his 25-year wildlife career as an intern on the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge near Sasabe, AZ as an intern assisting with the reintroduction of the masked bobwhite. After graduating Iowa State University in 1991, he was contracted as a bald eagle nest watcher by the Arizona Game and Fish Department and was assigned to Alamo Lake. Upon completing his assignment, he was hired by the Department to conduct the biological evaluation of the Aubrey Valley for a black-footed ferret reintroduction. Bill was promoted to Nongame Birds and Mammals Program Manager in 1996 and was able to not only release black-footed ferrets, but Mexican wolves and black-tailed prairie dogs too. As Program Manager, Bill has sat on numerous recovery teams including ocelot, jaguar Black-footed ferret, Mount Graham red squirrel, and Sonoran Pronghorns. He has authored or co-authored many technical reports and popular magazine articles. In 2008, with a sudden departure of the Western Association’s Grassland Coordinator, Bill was asked to step into the role, which is the position he still holds today. As Coordinator, Bill continues to work with prairie dogs, ferrets, swift fox and lesser prairie chickens. He has assisted with establishing the Western Conservation Model for wildlife by partnering with industry and private landowners to voluntarily enroll and fund conservation efforts. This landscape model approach has established a non-wasting endowment of $36 million dollars and conserved over 110,000 acres for the lesser prairie chicken over a 5 state range in about 2 years.

San Stiver, has been a practicing wildlife biologist since 1975. Stiver received his B.S. from the University of Montana in 1974. His working history includes a 30-year career with the Nevada Department of Wildlife where he spent 23 years working as a staff biologist on such diverse species as river otters, bear, cougar, upland game birds and furbearers. He spent much of his staff time promoting scientific research on species for which he was responsible. Sage-grouse conservation was a primary interest. Stiver designed and implemented the Nevada Governor’s Sage-grouse Conservation Team. On a west-wide front he helped develop the sage-grouse
conservation framework team that developed the sage-grouse conservation strategy. In 2003, Stiver retired from Nevada Department of Wildlife and for the past 13 years has worked as a subcontractor for WAFWA concentratingon sage-grouse and the sagebrush ecosystem. During that time, he has served as Secretary to the sage-grouse executive oversight committee (now the sagebrush EOC). Additionally, he functions as the conservation coordinator for WAFWA, providing coordination and collaboration between the Association, states and conservation partners on conservation in the sagebrush ecosystem.

Ken Mayer, holds a B.S. and M.S. in Natural Resources Management from Humboldt State University. He began his professional wildlife career with the California Department of Forestry (CDF), as their first Wildlife and Range Ecologist. While at CDF he co-founded the creation of the California Wildlife Habitat Relationship Program. He then moved to the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) in 1987, where he served for 12 years as the Statewide Deer Management Coordinator and then 7 years as the Chief Scientist for the Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR), where he supervised spill response statewide. In 2007, Ken retired from the CDFG and accepted the Nevada Governor appointment as Director of the Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW), where he served nearly 7 years. As Director, Ken served on the Governor’s Cabinet, as Executive Secretary of the Wildlife Commission and a member of the Nevada State Environmental Commission, He also served in an executive leadership role in both the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (WAFWA) and Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (AFWA). As Director, Ken served as the first Chairman of the National Greater Sage-grouse Executive Oversight Committee for 3 years and as the Director Lead for the WAFWA Sage-grouse and Columbian Sharp-tail Technical Team. Since leaving NDOW in 2013, he started his own consulting business (K. E. Mayer & Associates, LLC), where he is continuing his work on Greater sage-grouse conservation as the Coordinator of the WAFWA Wildfire and Invasive Species Initiative.

Tom Remington, Ph.D. Dr. Remington consults on a variety of wildlife management issues, and is currently the Coordinator of the Sagebrush Science Initiative, a collaborative effort between WAFWA and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to identify science needs for sagebrush dependent species, fund research to address the highest priorities, and develop a Sagebrush Conservation Strategy. He was the Director of the Colorado Division of Wildlife from 2008-2011, and led that agencies Terrestrial Section, and Avian Research Program prior to that. Tom has expertise in and has published on various aspects of sage-grouse and dusky grouse ecology, including food selection, nutrition, and habitat requirements.

Therese Race Thompson, MPA Master’s in Public Administration/Nonprofit Management – University of Colorado 2010. M.S. Fishery and Wildlife Biology – Colorado State University 1990. Therese consults on a variety of issues to public and nonprofit organizations, including providing capacity building through organizational assessments, Board development and governance, change management, comprehensive resource development planning, and grant administration. She has been the Project Coordinator/Director of Strategic Partnerships for all operations, planning, development, and communications for the Western Native Trout Initiative – a recognized National Fish Habitat Partnership and initiative of the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies – since February 2014. Over 20+ years, Therese has served in multiple capacities within the nonprofit and public sector as well as coached numerous small nonprofit organization leaders. These include conservation and grassroots community organizations as well as working at the local government, state, national and international levels in an executive management and consultant role, driving strategic planning and program development, evaluating risk, and building nonprofit organizational capacity through development of management systems, strong board governance, and comprehensive resource development plans.