Biography

Holly Hertel was raised in Bloomington, Illinois, and went to college at Illinois State University, where she became inspired by Jane Goodall and her chimpanzee research. She studied biology and presented her senior paper on wolf communication using books by a world-renowned wolf researcher, Dr. L. David Mech. After college, she moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she was a little closer to real wilderness. She volunteered at the new science museum in Saint Paul and, while making small mammal study skins, learned that Dr. L. David Mech lived nearby and ran a captive wolf study. She immediately volunteered for “Tuesday Processing.”  Eventually she went on to get her master’s degree in Biology and Ecology, at the University of Minnesota in Duluth, while studying a wild wolf pack in northeastern Minnesota for her thesis.

During her field study, Hertel trapped 19 wolves, spent 119 hours observing wolves and bears at a forest landfill over three summers and falls, located wolf collar radio signals, collected many specimens of wolf scat, and orienteered her way over forest, clearcuts, lakes, and blueberry-covered hills, encountering other animals in her travels and trappings, such as badgers, deer, bears, and foxes.

Holly Hertel’s experience with wildlife studies spans a total of seven years. She’s given presentations of her wolf studies. See a fifteen-minute video of the “processing” a very special captured wolf, the alpha female of her study pack (see Media and Links page).

Today, Holly Hertel is a Reference Librarian and Adjunct Professor at Rogue Community College. She camps, reads, plays musical instruments, and enjoys the beautiful wilderness of southern Oregon. Hertel lives with her partner and their dog and cat.