SCIENCE/RECOVERY:
CARTER NIEMEYER

Mr. Niemeyer, as the Wolf Management Specialist of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal Damage Control Department, served as a member of the wolf capture team that brought the first reintroduced wolves from Canada to Yellowstone National Park.

Carter’s career as a wildlife manager and trapper began during his childhood years spent on his family’s farm in Iowa. After college, he moved to Montana and worked for the Montana Department of Livestock, conducting a rabies suppression program. He then became a District Supervisor for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal Damage Control Department, responsible for the district’s predator management program, which included bears, mountain lions, coyotes, eagles and wolves.

By 1989, his experience had led him to become the Wolf Management Specialist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services, conducting wolf depredation investigations in the three Western wolf recovery states of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Mr. Niemeyer was a member of the review team during the development of the final Environmental Impact Statement for the reintroduction of the wolf into the Northern Rockies, and became a key member of the team that captured the newly reintroduced Yellowstone wolves.

Moving to Idaho, Carter served as the Wolf Recovery Coordinator of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, coordinating day-to-day activities regarding federal wolf recovery in Idaho. He retired in 2006, moving to the Idaho Department of Fish and Game as a wolf trapper, mentor and advisor on wolf matters. His book, Wolfer: A Memoir, follows Carter’s central role in the reintroduction of wolves to the West. Mr. Niemeyer received his M.S.and his B.S., both in wildlife biology, from Iowa State University.