Areas of Expertise: Coexisting with wildlife, Grizzly bear conservation, Grizzly bear compensation trust, Electric fencing incentive, Outreach, Education, Proactive, non-lethal approaches to managing bear-human conflicts and wolf/human conflicts, Collaborative partnerships

Erin has been working with communities in Western Montana to reduce bear-human conflicts through outreach and proactive projects for more than a decade, the last five of which have been as Defenders’ part-time Bear Aware Coordinator.  Before her work with Defenders Erin served as Director of Education for Brown Bear Resources in Missoula, Montana.  Erin work involves numerous outreach events and programs, as well as working directly with communities, livestock producers, and state/federal/tribal agencies to implement proactive techniques to minimize grizzly bear-human conflicts and provide compensation to ranchers who have lost livestock to grizzly bears.  Erin will be assisting Defenders wolf conservation program on implementing non-lethal methods to reduce conflicts between wolves and people and increase awareness about wolves in the region.

Erin Edge holds a B.S. in Wildlife Biology from the University of Montana.