Nonprofit Tells Us How to Live with Big Predators

By Bill Schneider, 3-02-06

Like it or not, we share the grandeur and openness of the New West with big predators—mountain lions, bears and wolves. Most of us want to peacefully co-exist with our big toothy friends. Fortunately, the Living With Wildlife Foundation is here to help us do it.

The nonprofit group, tucked away in the Montana’s remote Swan Valley, has by far the best offering of information and resources for people looking for advice and products to avoid conflicts with their wild neighbors. It’s easy for writers like myself to say use deer-proof fencing or bear-resistant garbage cans or get a good book on tips on preparedness, but where to find it? The answer is the LWWF website.

As the emphasized on the website, the charitable organization is “dedicated to helping people and wildlife coexist…by identifying sources of human/wildlife conflict and creating effective, practical and affordable solutions and preventions.”

Among the foundation’s major programs is the publication of a series of Living with Predators Resource Guides, which are available for downloading from the website for a small fee. The files are large, though, so you need a high-speed connection. The largest guide, covering bear-resistant products, takes 18 minutes to download, even with a DSL connection.

Another major LWWF program is testing bear resistant products. A company might claim a product is “bear proof,” but in league with most major wildlife agencies, the foundation actually conducts tests—most at the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone, Montana—to verify such claims and then give a stamp of approval. If the product fails, it does not make it in the LWWF resource guide. On the front page of the website, you can watch one the tests, a grizzly bear try to break into a garbage can.

The foundation’s website also has tons of basic—and free—information on living with mountain lions, wolves, coyotes and bobcats.

The foundation exists because of donations, so if interested, you can also make a contribution on the website.
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