What Diane Keaton had in common with Wendy Spencer of Wolf Haven

Both testified in favor of legislation against private ownership of wildlife,  for starters

TENINO, Washington;  SANTA MONICA, California––Wolf Haven director of animal care Wendy Spencer-Armestar,  60,  who died of cancer on September 30,  2025,  and actress Diane Keaton,  79,  who died of bacterial pneumonia on October 11,  2025,  pursued starkly life trajectories,  yet––while they may never have met––their paths crossed several times in delivering testimony to state legislatures in favor of bills to protect captive wildlife,  and to keep wildlife from being bred and sold in captivity.

Wendy Spencer-Armestar,  who mostly went as just Wendy Spencer after joining the Wolf Haven International staff in June 1998 as a volunteer,  studied anthrozoology,  researching human and animal interactions,  but appears not to have found her direction in life until age 28.

Diane Keaton,  on the other hand,  was already focused on acting as a career by age 16.

Origins of Wolf Haven

Wendy Spencer-Armestar arrived at Wolf Haven International in the immediate wake of several years of chaos.  The sanctuary was informally begun in 1980 by two couples,  Steve and Linda Kuntz and Ed and Elizabeth Andrews,  who had kept wolves as quasi-pets in Colorado before relocating to Washington state.

After operating a traveling educational wolf exhibit as Wolf Country for several years,  Ed and Elizabeth Andrews turned their 22 wolves and their Washington property over to the Kuntz family.

Moving to the present site in 1982,  the Kuntz family obtained nonprofit status as Wolf Haven America,  later renamed,  according to the Wolf Haven International web site,  “because we recognize that wolves need help all over the world,  and our supporters can be found around the world.”

Steve Kuntz resigned as Wolf Haven executive director in 1994 after a series of board conflicts.  He and Linda Kuntz,  who managed the Wolf Haven gift shop,  continued to live on the premises until 2000.

Ambitious but troubled pre-Wendy Spencer

By then Wolf Haven was attracting 30,000 visitors a year,  two and a half times as many as now,  and was in the middle of a dizzying serious of management transitions and changes of mission.

Among other roles,  in addition to housing the original Kuntz and Andrews wolves and doing public education about wolves,  Wolf Haven housed wolf hybrids who had either been abandoned by their people or impounded by law enforcement,  also housing several coyotes who had been live-trapped after becoming dangerously habituated to humans feeding them.

In addition,  Wolf Haven participated in the U.S Fish & Wildlife Service captive breeding and pre-release programs for endangered Mexican grey wolves,  producing 11 young wolves who were among those reintroduced to Arizona and New Mexico.

Wolf Haven also helped to fund wild wolf research in Alaska and British Columbia.

Finally,  Wolf Haven lobbied for a leading role in a plan,  which has not advanced and perhaps never will,  to reintroduce grey wolves to Olympic National Park.

Spencer & Gallegos

Along the way,  Wolf Haven went through eleven chief executives in one 18-year span,  during which Wendy Spencer as “acting curator” and “director of animal care” since 2003 was the main source of stability before the arrival of Diane Gallegos,  executive director from 2011 to 2023.

Perhaps the most bitter split and transition came in 1997,  just before Wendy Spencer arrived,  when the Wolf Haven board recognized that the distinction between itself and a roadside zoo had become blurred by the combination of high visitor traffic with staff and volunteer practices which conveyed an impression contrary to the professed message that wolves and wolf hybrids do not make good pets.

Staff and volunteers were ordered to refrain from petting the then 39 resident animals,  a rule Wendy Spencer and Diane Gallegos strictly enforced,  also stopping visits except by appointment in 2015 and limiting media access to regular visitor hours.

“Mima mounds”

Mostly during Wendy Spencer’s tenure,  Wolf Haven International expanded up from the original 60 acres to 82 acres,  including swamp,  woods,  and 55 acres of “mima mounds,”  a geological feature unique to southwestern Washington.

Apparently created by long-ago seismic activity,  “mima mounds” seen from the air are evenly spaced knobs of gravel and earth resembling the tops of giant Lego blocks.

Once stretching across the ancient sea bottom from the Olympic foothills to the Cascades,  “mima mounds” were mostly bull-dozed out of existence in the early-to-mid-20th century by farmers clearing and leveling fields.

But “mima mounds,”  besides being the only known habitat of threatened Mazama gophers and several threatened and endangered butter-fly species,  make excellent captive wolf and coyote habitat.  The Wolf Haven animals can hide behind them,  burrow into them, survey the landscape from on top of them,  or hunt insects all around them,  as many do.

Mission expanded

Wolf Haven International remains involved in most of the many diverse projects it took on in its early years,  mixing public education,  on-site species conservation,  and housing rescued animals.

The Wolf Haven mission expanded when in June 2018 Wolf Haven International acquired the McCleery Buffalo Wolf Foundation in Bridger,  Montana,  south of Billings.

The McCleery Buffalo Wolf Foundation,  the oldest wolf sanctuary in continuous operation,  was founded in 1921 by E. H. McCleery,  a medical doctor in Kane,  Pennsylvania,  who wanted to save the remaining U.S. “buffalo wolves” from extinction,  even as the U.S. Geological Survey,  ancestral to USDA Wildlife Services,  tried to drive them to extinction in the Lower 48 states on behalf of ranchers.

Over the next decade McCleery bought at least 20 wild wolves from government agencies,  zoos,  and private trappers.

Many moves

The wolves remained in captivity and were allowed to continue breeding.  McCleery moved about 30 wolves from his home property to a larger location nearby in 1928-1929,  where he eventually kept as many as 100 wolves.

McCleery died at age 93 in 1962.  His longtime assistant,  Jack Lynch,  moved the surviving wolves to first Gardiner,  Washington,  and then Emigrant,  Montana.

After Jack Lynch died in 2006,  the wolves were relocated again two years later to the present McCleery Ranch site.  His wife Mary Lynch continued to look after the wolves until her death in 2016.  Her son and son-in-law Ed and Terry Wheeler took over the job until the acquisition by Wolf Haven was completed in 2018.

Wendy Spencer moved to Montana

Wendy Spencer was in 2018 “temporarily” reassigned to the Montana location,  according to a Wolf Haven news release.  The “temporary” reassignment lasted for her last seven years on the job,  during which time the McCleery Ranch population of 33 wolves,  all captive-born,  declined to the present fifteen.

Recalled Dave Pauli,  the longtime Humane Society of the U.S. disaster relief coordination and regional director in the northern Rocky Mountains,  more recently handling disaster relief and animal rescue projects for Greater Good,  “Wendy Spencer was a friend,  mentor,  teammate and outstanding human being.”

“Wolf Wendy”

Pauli remembered working with Wendy Spencer and his daughters Maggie and Katie “on a day we colony-trapped a whole flock of feral peafowl from the property of a rancher who died.

“The girls have always just known her as Wolf Wendy,”  Pauli said.

“Wolf Wendy was not only a wolf expert,  but an every species advocate.  She rescued dogs,  chickens,  and every animal she had an opportunity to help.

“She was just a ‘no nonsense,  get it done’ woman,  but always with the best humane guidelines and protocols. I  would jump at the chance to participate in any Wolf Wendy project,  and thankfully she helped me on many of my capture and immobilization projects.”

Diane Keaton rescued a stray

Diane Keaton appears to have become in active animal rescue and advocacy around the same time as Wendy Spencer,  bringing a stray dog she found wandering beside a freeway to the Helen Woodward Animal Center in Rancho Santa Fe,  California,  just north of San Diego and just east of the Del Mar horse racing complex.

“The Helen Woodward Animal Center thanks Keaton for a lifetime of dedication to the cause of animal welfare,  and for her over twenty years serving on the Center’s board of directors,”   the Helen Woodward Animal Center said in an October 14,  2025 media release.

The media release credited Keaton for helping to pass legislation including the Big Cat Public Safety Act of 2022,  signed into law by former U.S. president Joe Biden after a 15-year campaign led  by Carole and Howard Baskin of Big Cat,  and the Helen Woodward Animal Center mentioned,  “passing more stringent safety regulations for animals working in the entertainment industry,  as well as stronger protections for wildlife and farm animals.”

Vegetarian lifestyle

Summarized Gabrielle Rockson for People magazine on October 15,  2025,  “The Helen Woodward Animal Center highlighted her commitment to pet adoption and living a vegetarian lifestyle,  noting that Keaton first became its celebrity spokesperson in 2001 before she was awarded the Helen Woodward Animal Center’s Humane Award in 2005.”

Keaton also served since 2022 on the board of Social Compassion in Legislation,  founded by longtime southern California active Judie Mancuso.

“An animal lover until the end,”  wrote Rockson,  “Keaton’s final post on Instagram was a photo of herself and her dog on April 11, 2025 to mark National Pet Day.

“In collaboration with home and lifestyle brand Hudson Grace, Keaton shared a photo of herself with her golden retriever Reggie.”

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