Success Stories

Defenders of Wildlife is a leader in putting innovative and proactive tools into action on the ground to reduce conflicts between people and grizzly bears. Since 1997, Defenders has implemented more than 250 grizzly coexistence projects.

In the past five years in particular, the rapid increase in the number of backyard chickens in the northern Rockies has created a unique source of grizzly bear conflicts. Chicken feed and fluttering chickens are irresistible to hungry bears. Unfortunately, grizzly bears that kill chickens are often killed by landowners who find them in their chicken coops, or by management agencies out of concern for human safety. In 2010, in an effort to protect grizzly bears from getting into more trouble with chickens, Defenders started the Electric Fencing Incentive Program. Since then, we have secured bear attractants at 58 sites, effectively keeping bears and people's property safe.