Three takeaways:

• Participants will gain a basic understanding of what wildlife need and how conditions on their property can influence wildlife use.
• Participants will learn how everyday property decisions, including food attractants, landscaping, and fencing, can affect wildlife activity.
• Participants will leave with practical considerations for safely coexisting with wildlife and helping reduce common conflicts, such as deer damage and bear attractants.

Short bio:

Jared Beaver is an Assistant Professor and Extension Wildlife Specialist at Montana State University and a Certified Wildlife Biologist®. His program combines Extension, applied research, and teaching to address practical wildlife-management challenges on working and residential lands. His work focuses on large-mammal ecology and human-wildlife conflict mitigation, including predator-livestock conflict, disease transmission risk, forage competition, and the use of emerging technologies such as thermal drones and edge-AI camera traps. He earned a B.S. in Biology from Wake Forest University, an M.S. in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences from the University of Tennessee, and a Ph.D. from Texas A&M University, where he also worked with Texas A&M AgriLife Extension.