Pathways 2025: Appreciating Nature’s Benefits
Pathways: Human Dimensions of Wildlife is a conference and training program designed to address the myriad issues that arise as people and wildlife struggle to coexist in a sustainable and healthy manner.
Session: Human-Bear Conflicts, September 10
“Low-stress herding facilitates grizzly bear - livestock conflict prevention” presentation by Matt Barnes, Northern Rockies Conservation Cooperative
I presented a project in Wyoming, where I worked with ranchers to herd cattle using low-stress livestock handling methods. There had been confirmed predation loss by grizzly bears in previous years, and there was no more confirmed predation loss for the three years of the project. The people who most fully adopted lows-stress livestock handling had the most benefit, reducing both predation and total death loss.
I presented a poster along with Courtney Vail of the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project on Colorado’s ‘Born to be Wild’ license plate, which supports ranchers AND wolves. The plate raised over $640,000 in its first year and will pass the $1 million mark this month. No other state has anything comparable.
Related publication
Proceedings of the 12th International Rangeland Congress: Working Together for Our Global Rangelands Future
June 2-6, 2025 | Adelaide, South Australia, Australia | M.K. Barnes | Paper no. 316, p. 921-925