“Public attitudes are trending in the right direction,” Molde said. “Just way too slow for my comfort.”
RENO, Nevada––“It is with great sadness that we learned of the passing of long-time Project Coyote supporter, dear friend, and fierce wild carnivore defender, Donald (Don) Molde,” Project Coyote founder Camilla Fox announced on July 24, 2025.
Molde, 87, born on August 19, 1937, deceased July 23, 2025, was also an enthusiastic reader of ANIMALS 24-7, for instance on May 16, 2024 praising our coverage of “why it is time for a major change in wildlife management around the globe, but more importantly, a change in how we view our non-human fellow travelers on the planet.
“Public attitudes are trending in the right direction,” Molde acknowledged, “just way too slow for my comfort.”
Project Coyote
“In 2009,” Fox recalled, “Don reached out to me at Project Coyote inquiring about whether we could help him with advocacy efforts in Nevada to better protect coyotes, mountain lions, and other persecuted predators.
“He shared that his favorite wild animal was the coyote, and that his beloved children have always been the dogs he rescued from the local shelter or abusive situations.
“Don and his late wife Jean quickly became dedicated Project Coyote supporters. I introduced him to Project Coyote Sierra Nevada representative Fauna Tomlinson.
“Worked to expose trapping & killing contests”
“Together, we—along with a cadre of Nevada advocates, including Trish Swain, founder of TrailSafe Nevada—worked to expose the horrors of trapping and wildlife killing contests.
“We faced a deeply entrenched Nevada Department of Wildlife,” Fox said, “that repeatedly refused to consider new science and ethics around predator mismanagement.”
Molde, Fox explained, “was a definite thorn in their side, continually submitting public records requests to document the agency’s misdeeds and mass predator slaughter at taxpayer expense.”
Director of mental health for Nevada prisons
Long before that, though, Molde, a medical doctor and psychologist, gained experience in fighting intransigent bureaucracies as director of mental health for the Nevada state prison system.
In that capacity, Molde, Eleanor Gottschalk (1919-2015), and Manuel Wedge, now 94, led efforts in the 1970s to reform the Nevada Division of Mental Health & Mental Retardation.
Molde, according to a January 10, 1976 article by Doug McMillan of the Nevada Evening Gazette, “dealt primarily with lack of adequate staffing,” including “lack of a speech and hearing therapist, psychiatrists, full-time chaplains and religious services, inadequate staff training, and insufficient education for some staff members in the program.”
Among Molde’s Nevada state prison system patients was the serial killer Ronald Gress, better known to media as Bristlewolf. A schizophrenic recluse who lived in a hole in the Black Rock Desert, Gress in 1978 shot newlyweds Richard and Judy Weese and their dog when they stumbled across him while seeking a lost gold mine. Gress then shot fellow hermit Peter Cachenaut after Cachenaut discovered the Weese’s remains a week later.
Molde became the primary source for an Instagram video series about the Gress case by Nathan Morley.
Longtime member of Toiyabe Chapter of the Sierra Club
Molde became active on behalf of wildlife as a member of the Toiyabe Chapter of the Sierra Club, formed in 1954, formally incorporated in 1957.
Molde on behalf of the Toiyabe Chapter of the Sierra Club in 1983 went public with a complaint that $470,000 left “for the preservation of wild horses in Nevada” by the estate of Leo Heil, a resident of Sunnyvale, California who died in Switzerland at age 69 in 1972, had only been held in trust by the state of Nevada.
The Heil bequest had become worth more than $1 million, but had not been used, Molde complained, because Nevada legislators “don’t like wild horses.”
The state of Nevada responded in 1985 by forming the Nevada Commission for the Preservation of Wild Horses, headed for 25 years by gubernatorially appointed administrator Catherine Barcomb.
How the Nevada Commission for the Preservation of Wild Horses used the proceeds of the Heil estate remained subject of litigation and legislation until the Heil estate funds were exhausted in 2010.
“Fussing with Nevada wildlife commissioners for 30 years”
Molde meanwhile went on to serve on the boards of directors of both the Nevada Humane Society and Defenders of Wildlife, skirmishing all the while with the Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners.
“I’ve been fussing with them for 30 years or so about killing of coyotes and mountain lions and trapping and poisoning and snaring––all the miserable stuff they do,” Molde told Associated Press write Scott Sonner in November 2007.
Annoyed by Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners’ efforts to expand puma hunting, Molde in February 2009 told Associated Press writer Martin Griffith that, “This whole thing is nonsense. This is a non-scientific effort to kill an animal just because they don’t like it. It’s an irrational dislike of an animal who has every right to live here.”
“Bobcats are taking a hammering”
By June 2009 Molde was campaigning, unsuccessfully, for “trappers in Nevada to be subject to quotas like hunters,” reported Griffith.
“There’s no question that bobcats are taking a hammering across the west because of high pelt prices,” Molde told Griffith. “I don’t think the unlimited killing of bobcats is serving the public’s interest.”
Molde almost a year later, in May 2010, pointed out to Griffith that despite intensifying predator hunting and trapping in Nevada, killing 71,548 coyotes and 1,698 pumas over the preceding ten years, “Killing predators has done nothing to enhance mule deer numbers and it appears it never will. It may be that our current population of 107,000 is all the mule deer our habitat will support.”
Mule deer & bears
Nevada claimed to host more than 200,000 mule deer in the 1990s, but a dryer climate due to global warming has markedly reduced the carrying capacity of the habitat.
The current Nevada mule deer population is estimated at about 68,000.
Despite Molde’s objections, the Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners voted in May 2010 to further escalate persecution of pumas and coyotes, and in August 2010 added bears to the hit list.
The commission members “are not conservation-oriented. They just want to kill animals and this is another example,” Molde said. “There’s no call for a bear hunting season in Nevada. We have almost no black bears in Nevada.”
Nevada Wildlife Alliance
Molde and Mark E. Smith, Camilla Fox remembered, in 2014 “co-founded the Nevada Wildlife Alliance after filing a lawsuit against the Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners, which sought to inform the public about the commission’s failure to protect non-target species from trapping.”
Molde, Fox added, “served as the Nevada plaintiff in WildEarth Guardians’ lawsuit against Nevada Wildlife Services, which was settled in 2016 to the great advantage of wildlife protection. “
The Nevada Wildlife Alliance actually debuted as Nevadans for Responsible Wildlife Management, arguing that trappers should be required to visit their traps more often than once every four days, or once every two days near Reno, Carson City, and Las Vegas.
Tried to ban killing contests
Later in 2014 Molde and Carson City resident Fred Volz petitioned the Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners seeking “regulatory changes that would outlaw contests awarding cash or other prizes for killing coyotes,” Griffith reported.
Killing contests “show a profound disrespect for non-human life,” Molde told KOLO-TV in Reno. “To simply kill an animal for the heck of it on a weekend, take its life with no second thought about it, to us is offensive.”
Molde renewed that campaign in 2015.
“Somebody has to do something. These contests are outrageous,” Molde explained to Jeff DeLong of the Reno Gazette Journal. “The willful killing of wildlife just for the fun of it,” Molde said, “is just not right There is no better definition of the frivolous killing of an animal.
“Wildlife version of a hate crime”
“Coyote killing contests represent a wildlife version of a hate crime,” Molde said.
Trying again in 2016, Molde told Tom Knudson of Reveal News, “Most people don’t even know this is happening. They think it went away years ago.
“There is no reason to treat animals this way anymore,” Molde insisted, pointing out that, “The refusal of killing contest participants to come to the events with their cameras and leave their guns at home,” awarding prizes to the person able to call, rather than kill the most coyotes, belies their true intention,” Knudson summarized.
“That they won’t accept that as ‘middle ground’ tells us that it’s the killing, not the calling, that is at the heart of these events,” Molde said.
Molde’s last beer
Fauna Tomlinson offered, “a sweet little story from his last night. Don said he wanted a beer. The nurse poured a small glass. Don and I clinked glasses and cheered. He brought it to his lips, chapped but determined, and took the tiniest sip. Then he did it again. He said it tasted good—and that was all he wanted.
“I like to think of that as his goodbye happy hour,” Tomlinson said. “His way of saying, ‘Goodbye, world.’ I’m honored to have shared it with him. We enjoyed many happy hours together over the years.
(Daniel Leventhal photo)
“I’ll keep his bird feeders filled while they sell the house, and I’ll ask the new owners to do the same,” Tomlinson vowed.
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R.I.P., Mr. Molde–yours was a life well-lived, and we’re all the better for it. May your tribe increase.
Sincere condolences to your family and countless friends and admirers.
x
Eric Mills, coordinator
ACTION FOR ANIMALS
Oakland
We deeply appreciated Don’s efforts and contributions to our shared cause. He was affectionately referred to as a “godfather” to Nevada’s wildlife advocates and will be missed. Our wildlife has lost a champion and we have lost a friend.
Thank you, Beth and Merritt, for devoting space to memorialize Don.
Dan fledged an entire generation of Nevada wildlife advocates. I had the privilege of being one. He made a difference and inspired us to continue, as he would say, applying friction against the machine.
Dr Don Molde was such a good and genuine friend of mine and I greatly appreciate all his lifelong friendship and support in our shared concern for all wildlife species both animal and plant. I gratefully recall our joint field trips including with his dear wife Jean at times and how many unique and amazing places and wildlife habitats we discovered together. My parents also—Robert and Alice—were good friends with Don and co-strivers for justice for all living creatures. I greatly appreciated Don’s making possible my public presentations to help the wild horses and burros as well as all Endangered Species including the Endangered Mountain/Andean Tapirs. May you rest in peace, good friend, and Godspeed upon your great undying journey forth…until we meet again..
Don was such an effective advocate for animals. He could not be rattled. Everything was so matter of fact supported by his brilliant mind. His care for animals was contagious and as such continues to benefit “critters” (his term) by his inspiration to others.
Is there going to be a memorial service? I left a message on his cell phone.