About our instructor
Jason Shute is an AIP Certified Bear Safety and Wildlife Awareness instructor as well as a Certified Wilderness Survival instructor with a multitude of real world bear encounters. Jason earned his certificate in Bear Field Research, graduating the Bear Study Immersion Program at the Wildlife Research Institute field station in northern Minnesota, where he trained with Dr. Lynn Rogers, the world’s preeminent black bear behavioural biologist and bear research pioneer. Jason has collaborated in the longest ongoing bear study in North America, studying vocalizations, body language, social organization and ecology with hours of up close observation and interaction with bears.
Along with additional peripheral certifications in bear & wildlife safety, Jason has multiple professional certifications in animal training and behaviour and is an award winning educator with over 20 yrs professional teaching experience in the animal behaviour field. Jason is a 6th degree black belt in Filipino Martial Arts and currently working towards his Wildlife Rehabilitator licence.
A seasoned outdoorsman and wilderness adventurer, Jason has a ton of boots on the ground, backcountry experience in bear country including the Canadian Rocky Mountains, the Katmai coast of Alaska, and with many close bear encounters during his extensive immersion in the Kodiak Island wilderness, home to the densest concentration of the largest brown bears anywhere on earth. His hands-on interactions and experience with black bears in the boreal forests of North America is unparalleled within the bear safety industry/community.
His reverence for nature, his affinity for bears, wilderness adventure and wildlife tracking have given him lots of opportunity to successfully field test and fine tune his bear awareness instincts and safety protocols. For Jason, helping people to feel comfortable and thrive in wild places starts with teaching them to better understand the animals who we share space with in those environments and how we can coexist with them safely, responsibly, with ease and without conflict.
Bear Savvy Canada supports bear conservation and research and is a member of the International Association of Bear Research and Management.
