Efforts are underway to educate locals and visitors to Cortes Island on how to help dogs, wolves and humans coexist.

With summer approaching, more visitors are making their way to the island every week, mainly from towns and cities, often with pets. The Friends of Cortes Island conservation and education society, or FOCI, has issued a five-point primer on how to deal with wildlife encounters. 

It provides specifics on how best to manage face to face meetings with wolves and bears.

FOCI board member and biological monitoring technician Autumn Barrett-Morgan says rural environments such as Cortes Island can feel like an opportunity, and, perhaps, a safe place to have dogs off leash and able to explore and wander. But, she says that opportunity needs to be informed with practical information on how each species senses and perceives unexpected encounters with each other.

CKTZ News delves into the details in the interview below: