We set out to build the best darn Bear Smart resource on the planet, and by goodness, I think we've done it! But we've only just begun, and we need your help.

Our goal is for Get Bear Smart's new website to provide all the latest news and research on how to improve human coexistence with black bears, grizzlies and polar bears. We will use it to chart and catalogue media coverage of issues related to human-bear coexistence, and to provide the latest and most accurate research and information on how to prevent human-bear conflicts.

Our monthly e-newsletter, BearSmart Views, will make sure you stay up-to-date on the latest and greatest. (If you're not that patient, consider an RSS feed.)

But this isn't about us talking to you, it's about expanding a much-needed conversation, a conversation about how to create a continental Bear Smart movement of individuals and communities committed to keeping people safe and bears wild.

No matter where we live, all of us deal with the same problems — bears in our yards, bears in our garbage, and, in some places, even bears in our cars or homes. Thankfully, the solutions are usually the same, too. We can learn from each other and support each other as we slowly but surely protect ourselves and our property from the ravages of hungry and curious bears, and at the same time protect the bears from us, too.

Although we have compiled more than a hundred web pages of material, and dozens of the best books, reports, research papers, and videos, we know we haven't got it all. There's more material out there that can help others. There are more experts, more concerned citizens, more stories and experiences that are worth sharing.

So please contact us if you have research papers, reports, news articles, personal stories or other important information that can help all of us improve our Bear Smart IQs. We'll post it on our website and include it in our newsletter. And we'll all be Bear Smarter for it.

Get Bear Smart!