Community Based Solutions for Human Bear Conflict - Morehouse

Facilitating long-term coexistence between people and large carnivores is a persistent, global conservation challenge. Southwestern Alberta, Canada is no exception. In this region of the province, protected public lands are sparse and grizzly bear home ranges overlap substantially with private lands used for agriculture. The region is home to the highest density grizzly bear population in Alberta and is connected to a larger population of bears in British Columbia and Montana. The primary conflicts with grizzly bears include depredation of livestock, damage to stored crops, and access to a variety of attractants including dead livestock. Human safety is also a community concern. These challenges associated with sharing the landscape with grizzly bears are not unique to southwestern Alberta. However, the farmers and ranchers within this region have repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to find ways to share the landscape with large carnivores and have worked together with other partners to form a community-driven response to human-bear conflicts. The Waterton Biosphere Reserve’s (WBR) Carnivores and Communities Program (CACP) works to support coexistence of people and large carnivores through initiatives including reducing livestock loss, damage to stored crops, and safety risks from carnivores by engaging residents in hands-on programming. The group has also worked to evaluate their conflict mitigation efforts, an important and often missed component of coexistence endeavors. In this webinar, I will discuss the challenges associated with living with grizzly bears, the development of the community-based landowner-driven CACP, and the implementation of the CACP’s conflict mitigation strategies. I will also discuss the results of the evaluation of this program, including a discussion of both ecological and social factors.