Wildlife Awareness

Wildlife Awareness is an 8 to 10 hour course designed to minimize negative interactions between people and wildlife.  While defence of people is always the highest priority in any wildlife encounter, this training strives to minimize stress, injury and death of wildlife through situational awareness, knowledge, pre-planning and skills.

Arctic Response offers two variations of this program: Barren Land and Boreal Forest, each covering the highest risk species most likely to be encountered within each ecosystem.  Both versions of the program include core animals such as bears and wolves.  Clients then have several region specific electives to choose from such as cougars, muskox, moose or arctic marine mammals.

This program includes a half day of classroom based knowledge training and a half day of outdoor practical training in a wilderness setting.  The field portion includes practical exercises using non-lethal defensive tools such as pen flare style bear bangers and bear spray.  Candidates also practice physical and verbal posturing skills and receive an introduction to erecting temporary bear fences and audible sensor alarms.