Virtual Posters

In rapidly urbanizing Northern regions, human population growth places increasing pressures on wildlife populations. Currently, the incorporation of perceptions of local people is recognized as a critical missing link to build resilient adaptive management strategies. This research examines the beliefs and values of two comparable Northern urbanizing regions on human-bear encounters and bear management: Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far-East and the city of Anchorage in South-central Alaska. Forty-six semi-structured interviews were collected across study regions during 2010 and 2011. Analyses were carried out through classification of interview content via emergent coding. Our results show that, across the study regions, it is broadly perceived that people, themselves, are a significant contributor to human-bear encounters. Whereas for Alaska’s participants ‘being in bear country’ is strongly linked to recreational activities, on Sakhalin people connect ‘being in bear country’ to ‘competition over resources’ with bears. Therefore economic and social values of human-bear encounters vary but play a role in both regions. The perception of what bear management really is and what it should be differs strongly. For Sakhalin’s participants the implementation of hunting permits is thought of as bear management, whereas in Alaska the discontent about the level of public involvement in policy decision making comes to mind for many participants, something not even considered on Sakhalin. These data provide key insights to potential improvements in bear management strategies in these Northern settlements and the information is transferable to other region where increased human activity encroaches on wild bear populations.