As grizzly bear populations recover in parts of North America, encounters with humans, livestock depredation, and retaliatory killing have increased, creating complex welfare and coexistence challenges that require careful management to resolve without lethal control.
Conflict between grizzly bears and humans creates welfare harms in multiple directions. Bears killed in retaliatory shootings or through lethal wildlife management die violently, often after a period of aversive conditioning attempts. Bears relocated after conflicts often experience the stress of capture, handling, and transport before being released into unfamiliar territory where they may face competition from resident bears. Cubs of problem bears may become orphaned when their mothers are killed. The welfare of livestock killed or injured in depredation incidents is also real. Coexistence approaches that prevent conflict through non-lethal means protect bear welfare while also reducing livestock losses — a genuinely win-win approach that the evidence strongly supports.