How part of an advocate’s $2.45M estate will help Wolf Park

Wolf Park in Battle Ground looks ahead after surprise gift. Plus, Lebanon mayor ready to meet critics in LEAP pipeline debate. GE Aviation outlines start of Lafayette plant work. And more.

Wolf Park, home to Howl Nights and behavioral research and education for more than a half-century in Battle Ground, will share in the $2.45 million estate of a Chicago businesswoman who friends say dedicated her later years to the welfare of wolves.

Wolf Park will get more than $800,000, part of a three-way split guided by Eileen Sutz’s estate, according to an announcement this week by those overseeing her estate. The others sharing in the estate are Yellowstone Forever, a nonprofit partner of Yellowstone National Park, and the International Wolf Center, an interpretive center in Ely, Minnesota.

According to friends guiding her estate, Sutz mixed a successful business career with founding a theater company, supporting animal rescue organizations the following Rolling Stones tours. She also advocated for educating people about wolves and was a staunch defender of the wolf population.

“It kept her fulfilled to keep working to support wolves,” Klaus Boettcher, a friend of Sutz, said in a release with this week’s announcement. “At the same time, it was devastating and depressing to see what was happening to them. She really wanted to support changing the narrative about wolves.”

(Photo: Wolf Park)

When she died in February 2022, her estate looked for ways to do that. Which led to Wolf Park, among the stops.

Here, Karah Rawlings, Wolf Park’s executive director, talks about the gift and what will be done with it at the facility just north of Battle Ground.

Question: How did you get word about what Eileen Sutz had in mind for her estate? Did you know Eileen Sutz before now?