Common sensing: Human-black bear cohabitation practices in Colorado

Abstract

Current wildlife management practices in western societies must increasingly deal with human-wildlife conflicts. In their attempt to spatially regulate humans and wild animals, the common focus is on containment, endeavouring to facilitate the removal and exclusion of wild animals. Recently, however, ideas of cohabitation have emerged in wildlife management practices, suggesting that humans and wild animals share the same space. We argue that aiming at cohabitation requires that wildlife management be approached as an interactive and dynamic endeavour involving humans, wild animals and landscape. Accordingly, wildlife management should no longer focus on the sole agency of humans; it must also examine the agency of animals and the influence of the landscape in which the interactions takes place. To understand these interactions and dynamics we introduce the concept of multi-sensory writing and reading and apply this to an in-depth study of black bear management on the Colorado Front Range, U.S.A. We analyse our results focussing on the spatial interactions between human, black bear and landscape. We conclude suggesting that cohabitation as a goal of wildlife management requires a radical decentralization and spatialization where humans, wild animals, and the landscape shape interactions co-creatively.