Mentorship

Amaroq Weiss        

Director, Western Species Conservation

Defenders of Wildlife 

Amaroq Weiss oversees Defenders’ four-person western staff whose chief focus is the restoration and conservation of gray wolves and grizzly bears through policy work, legislation, public education, on-the-ground proactive projects to build landowner tolerance, and administration of the only privately-funded compensation fund paying for wolf-or-grizzly-caused livestock losses.  The western team is also engaged in efforts to protect other iconic western species such as bison and woodland caribou.  Amaroq helped establish the Pacific Alliance for Wild Wolves and the Coalition to Recover Oregon’s Wolves, and created an electronic listserve called the Pacific West Wolf Information Network that provides subscribers information and action alerts regarding wolf recovery potential in Washington, Oregon and California.  She was an appointed representative on the Oregon Wolf Advisory Committee that developed the state’s wolf conservation and management plan; is a regular invited speaker regarding wolves at the annual Public Interest Environmental Law Conference, the largest and oldest public interest law conference in the nation; and was an invited speaker for the Idaho Public Broadcasting program, Predators in the West, that aired in five western states.  Amaroq is a contributing writer and editor on Defenders’ publications such as Places for Wolves and Places for Grizzly Bears, and has published articles in several venues including International Wolf, the quarterly journal published by the International Wolf Center. 

Amaroq Weiss holds a BS from Iowa State University, an MS from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a J.D. from the University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.