A dedicated group of people in partnership with Non-Governmental Organizations
Amy Deane
Founder of Save the Wild Chinchillas
Currently working with researchers in Chile and Bolivia on conservation of both Chinchilla species. She has spent over 25 years studying chinchillas. In 1995, she began field studies of wild chinchillas. Since 2000, she has spent much time in the field restoring habitat and educating others about the plight of chinchillas. This includes a large amount of time working in the nursery, seed gathering, the maintenance of restoration plots, creating artificial burrows and observation studies. She has aided in the research of long-tailed chinchillas, the Darwin fox, the Andean bear and burn compartments of the Ordway Preserve (Florida) by creating GIS databases. She has also enhanced habitat of endangered birds and bats. As an undergrad, she conducted primate behavior studies. As a graduate student at the University of Florida she aided in avian nest depredation studies.
Chase Lansdale
Advisory Committee Member
Chase has been in involved in conservation focused volunteer and internship projects for 8 years in the United States and Chile. These include planting native plants in the Tijuana Estuary and helping to collect behavioral data of chinchillas via camera traps near the town of Illapel, Chile. He received a Master's of Science in Environmental Conservation in 2017. He has since helped contribute to the creation of environmentally focused management plans on the Oregon Coast of the United States and has aided with the development of conservation focused projects with The Wetlands Conservancy and The City of Gresham in Oregon as well.
In his free time he enjoys playing guitar and going on hikes with waterfalls at the end.
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Rigo Montero Valle
Field Station Manager
Rigo has been helping our project since 1999, when he picked up Amy in the middle of the night as she was walking from her campsite (now our station) to the National Chinchilla Reserve. Since then, Rigo stopped goat farming and mining and took a job working as a Forest Ranger at Reserva Nacional Las Chinchillas for CONAF (Chilean Forrest Service). For sometime, he served as the Chief of the Nacional Chinchilla Reserve. Currently he works full-time for CONAF and runs our station in his free time.