What does it mean to be bear smart? Join Rockies & Plains Senior Representative, Erin Edge, to find out!
Transcript:
Bear smart – basically the idea is to have information to the public that’s readily accessible, that helps people understand what it is, what it means to live with bears on your landscape. And so, with a lot of new people moving to the West, and also with just people that have lived here for a long time in bear populations, expanding into areas they haven’t been in a long time. It’s, you know, some people may not know what to do. So it’s things like securing your garbage from bears, putting an electric fence around chicken coops, not putting your bird feeders out in the summer when bears are awake. Bear smart, bear awareness, when we’re talking about bear-smart communities, it’s getting that information so common in the community that it’s just natural to not leave your garbage out for bears, or to pick your domestic fruit trees so that there’s not a bunch of fallen fruit, down attracting bears. It’s a lot of work to get that much information so widespread, but communities are starting to be interested in that because it does prevent conflicts. And in the end, it’s good for people and for bears.
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