On a sunny day in May, Noah Starling and I parked on the edge of Grafs East Park, a sprawling green space in the middle of a residential neighborhood that connects to the 52 miles of trails that wind through Bozeman, Montana.
Recognizing Starling’s Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks truck, a resident inquired if we were doing a deer count. In recent years, he said, there have been so many deer in his yard that he finds it ironic that he can’t hunt them.
Starling explained that the city, not the state, is responsible for managing wildlife within city limits. The state, however, typically responds to run-ins between humans and bears, mountain lions, and sick or injured deer. And as Bozeman’s neighborhoods have sprawled into wildlife habitat, those conflicts are on the rise; the city’s south side is home to an estimated 60 to 80 deer per square mile, and bears and mountain lions visit Bozeman trails, green spaces and backyards.
Starling, a wildlife technician, is one of eight Fish, Wildlife and Parks staff who work in these neighborhoods, acting as “first responders” when conflicts occur. The job mostly involves reacting to events, but Starling hopes to change that with a tool that could help the city and county anticipate and prevent problems with wildlife.
“Realistically, human-wildlife conflict is a human deal,” Starling said. “Ultimately, it takes a community to fix it.”
STARLING’S JOB OFTEN REQUIRES him to euthanize animals whose behavior poses a risk to public safety. During the especially cold winter of 2022, when hungry deer foraged along city streets and nearby highways, Bozeman drivers hit so many that Starling had to euthanize as many as six per day — about 70 altogether. On a single summer day in 2023, he euthanized three bears that lingered perilously close to humans, including one that was snacking from a Costco-sized bird feeder outside a Bozeman apartment.
“Teaching bears to be food-conditioned, thus making a dangerous bear, forces our hand as wildlife managers,” said Starling. “Human safety will always come first, and so often, we end up being the bad guy.”
The experience weighed on Starling and eventually inspired him to enroll in a master’s degree program at Montana State University, where he is studying human-wildlife conflict.
“Realistically, human-wildlife conflict is a human deal. Ultimately, it takes a community to fix it.”
As part of his degree, Starling is creating an interactive map of Bozeman and surrounding Gallatin County that shows where human-wildlife conflicts are most likely to occur. The probability of future conflict is based on the locations of previous conflicts — where deer have been hit by vehicles or bears caught eating from trash cans — along with habitat-suitability data for black bears and two subspecies of deer. Starling hopes the map, which he’s created in collaboration with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and the Gallatin County Planning Office, will help city, county and state officials both prevent conflicts and reduce the number of animals that are euthanized.
“This is a tool that I hope will give decision-makers a way to know where conflict is occurring,” said Starling. “We can’t stop the increase of humans, but we can help increase knowledge.”
Cities like Missoula, Montana, and Durango, Colorado, require residents to use bear-proof trash cans in some areas, and local “bear smart” organizations encourage people to lock away attractants like pet food and grill grease traps. Durango recently approved an ordinance allowing residents to use electric fencing and electrified “unwelcome mats” within city limits to discourage bears. For a fee, Bozeman already offers bear-proof trash containers in neighborhoods bears frequently visit.
Lisa Upson, executive director of the nonprofit People and Carnivores, said Starling’s project could further pinpoint where such measures are most needed, enabling officials and residents to address problems community-wide rather than simply moving them around. “The thing with these issues,” said Upson, “is that if you prevent a conflict on one property, the conflict just moves down the road.”
MAPPING TOOLS LIKE STARLING’S could also help cities and counties take longer-term steps to prevent human-wildlife conflicts. Gallatin County Chief Planning Officer Sean O’Callaghan, who serves on Starling’s master’s committee, said that better data on where conflicts are likely to occur could help the county prepare for future growth in ways that reduce risks for both humans and wildlife.
“Wildlife conflict could happen anywhere, in theory,” said O’Callaghan. “Having data and some predictive tools to help us understand the contributing factors and address them in a more meaningful manner will certainly be helpful.”
University of California, Santa Cruz ecologist Chris Wilmers, who leads the Santa Cruz Puma Project, said that regional development patterns have long ignored large animals’ need to move across the landscape. “For 20 to 30 years, throughout the Intermountain West, it’s been 30 acres and a house here, 10 acres and a house there,” said Wilmers. “So, you need a huge amount of land to support that kind of building, and then it takes away all that land from wildlife. This is what is creating massive conflicts.”
By tracking mountain lion movements and studying the species’ behavior in the Santa Cruz Mountains, the project has helped to identify locations where habitat corridors and wildlife crossings can effectively ease conflicts.
Wildlife behavior isn’t static, though, and urbanization and climate disruption are driving new changes. Wilmer and others have found that while mountain lions generally avoid people, those that are forced to take up residence in parks or other green spaces will prey on cats or raccoons. Recent work by Julie Young, a professor of ecology at Utah State University, suggests that coyotes living in and around cities are becoming bolder than their rural counterparts.
“This is a tool that I hope will give decision-makers a way to know where conflict is occurring. We can’t stop the increase of humans, but we can help increase knowledge.”
Young said climate change has introduced another layer of uncertainty by creating a “new norm of no norm.” Erratic weather patterns are making it harder to predict when food shortages will push animals toward people, and warming temperatures are disrupting the seasonal timing of nuts and berries. Changing conditions also affect when deer give birth, and early evidence suggests that some carnivores may be adjusting their reproductive cycles, too.
Despite the many variables, Starling hopes that maps like his can serve as a blueprint of sorts — one that makes living in close quarters safer for both people and wildlife.
“Hopefully, if I do this right, this tool may be expanded across the West,” Starling said. “Living with wildlife looks similar across many landscapes; it’s just a matter of people doing it.”
a tool to help humans and animals peacefully coexist. Credit: Sam Wilson/High Country News
This story is part of High Country News’ Conservation Beyond Boundaries project, which is supported by the BAND Foundation and the Mighty Arrow Family Foundation.
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This article appeared in the September 2026 print edition of the magazine with the headline “Preventing human-wildlife conflicts before they start.”
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