The workshop’s format is designed to encourage everyone to participate as well as provide opportunities for interaction with professional and community human-bear conflict specialists. Attendees leave with:
- A better understanding of the history, causes and current trends in human-bear conflicts
- New and proven methods of reducing human-bear conflicts
- Tools, techniques and tactics that work in the real world
Who should attend? Anyone involved with reducing human-bear conflicts on public lands, private lands and in communities, including field biologists and technicians, wildlife managers, conservation officers and community organizers.
The Human-Bear Conflicts Workshop:
A History of Success
Back in 1987 a small, dedicated group of agency bear managers, educators and wildlife specialists met at Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories to focus on finding ways to better understand and manage conflicts between people and bears. That historic gathering was the beginning of a new path forward for both species.
Managers and others from all over North America interested in understanding and reducing conflicts soon made attending these workshops a priority. They knew their time and money would be well-spent and they would go home with lots of useful, actionable information, new ideas and an invaluable network of people all working to find solutions.
Subsequent workshops in Canmore, Alberta (1997 and 2009), Missoula, Montana (2012) and Gatlinburg, Tennessee (2018) all made important contributions and helped advance the field of conflict prevention and management.
One of the many advances was a seemingly small but actually very important step forward taken for the fourth gathering in Missoula, Montana in 2012, when the Bear-Human Conflicts Workshop was renamed the Human-Bear Conflicts Workshop. Because professionals everywhere saw the need to recognize one very important truth: it’s people who cause most conflicts with bears. And it is up to people to find solutions.
The workshop’s long history of forward thinking and collaborative discovery continues when the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks and Polar Bears International co-host the 7th International Human-Bear Conflicts Workshop in beautiful Kalispell, Montana on October 5-9, 2025. We can’t wait to see you there!
