Our Wild World

What is an urban bear? Sharon Baruch-Mordo helps us answer this question as a result of a multi year experiment and study in Aspen, CO that evaluated on-site education in residential and construction sites; Bear Aware educational campaigns in neighborhoods; and elevated law enforcement, and using the carrot and the stick approach to get people to secure garbage to reduce confrontations. Interestingly, the study found little support for education or enforcement in the form of daily patrolling in changing human behavior! What she did find was more support for proactive enforcement, and mandating bear-resistance refuse containers. The end result found that evidence-based decision-making is critical for implementing conservation actions for human-wildlife conflicts by altering human behaviors through public education and enforcement of wildlife-related laws. When we can get humans to stop irresponsible behavior in wildlife habitat, we are both protecting them and the bears.