Bear Safety Messaging: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

Tom Smith is currently on the faculty of the Wildlife and Wildlands Conservation Program at Brigham Young University. An Alaska-based research biologist for the National Park Service and the US Geological Survey from 1992 through 2006, Dr. Smith is a preeminent expert in bear research, and continues to summer on the Kenai Peninsula. His presentation will include a brief recap of the International Bear Research and Management Conference, with a focus on bear safety messaging: what makes sense and what doesn’t… “an evaluation of what you’ve been told all these years….” This presentation draws from over 700 documented human/bear conflict incidents in Alaska.