Western Bear Foundation Joe Kondelis

Kondelis stepped up to the challenge of looking after bears. He said, “Myself and a good friend are dyed-in-the-wool bear hunters that just loved the sport and loved the species. We noticed a lack of concern for bears and bear hunting. We felt not a lot of states were worried about their bear populations, not a lot of the organizations out there focusing on the right to bear hunt and ensuring there’s a future for bear hunting on the landscape. We’re in existence because we’re seeing a lot of headwinds coming against bears, bear hunting, and specifically predator hunting.”

Check out The Western Bear Foundation, focused on protecting bears, bear habitat, and the privilege of bear hunting. https://www.westernbearfoundation.org 

Kondelis said, “We want to be a double-edged sword; one end of our spectrum is going to be conservation-based. In areas where we have large grizzly populations or large black bear populations, we want to reduce conflict to ensure that we keep as many bears on the landscape as possible. And that’s for both hunters and non-hunters. Bears are our big focus, and we want to ensure we’re doing our part as human beings to reduce conflict. So that’s a big part of it, research and further education. We’re doing some black bear population studies. The conservation piece is a big part of what we’ve done, probably more so in the last five years, just because we haven’t seen a lot of attacks on hunting.