Rupert Pilkington

Originally from Scotland, Rupert obtained an undergraduate degree in Rural Resource Management from Seale-Hayne College, England, and a Master’s in Rural and Regional Resources Planning, from Aberdeen University, Scotland. As a wildlife specialist, Rupert has worked with many species including red deer, mule deer, moose, bighorn sheep, peregrine falcons, wolves and bears.

During four seasons as a wildlife technician with the US National Park Service, which included working in Colorado and Utah, Rupert developed a special interest in bears while working in the bear management programme in Alaska’s Denali National Park, in 1993. After emigrating to Canada in 1997, Rupert worked initially for the Eastern Slopes Grizzly Bear Project, and in Banff National Park’s human/bear conflict management program, in Alberta. In 2000, Rupert established Ursus International – an organisation dedicated to wilderness preservation and sustainable ecosystem management through bear conservation. Ursus’ key tools in approaching these issues are education and address of bear/human conflict issues. Ursus’ work is divided between brown bears, black bears and polar bears. Rupert has lectured and taught courses and programs on bears, wildlife management and safety, and ecology for a variety of universities, companies and vocational study facilities, including the Wild Rockies Field Institute, and the Glacier Institute, in Montana, USA. Each fall, Rupert teaches courses on polar bear biology and conservation, at the Churchill Northern Studies Center, at Hudson Bay, Canada. He also spends part of the summers working as an adventure cruise guide and speaker, in British Columbia, south-east and south-west Alaska, the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands, and in the Russian Far East. This work has allowed him to combine two of his greatest passions; travel and teaching people about wilderness, wildlife and conservation. Rupert has travelled extensively in Europe, Eurasia, North America, Asia and the Antipodes. A northerner by birth and descent, he has a passion for the far-flung and untrammelled corners of the Earth, the ecology and wildlife of the Arctic, and the human history of the Polar Regions. However, he is also very socially oriented, enjoying good discussion and being fascinated by culture and diversity. He speaks French and German and can read enough Latin to make him wish he had studied it better at school. He has a keen interest in history, geography, poetry, cross-country skiing, kayaking, fine wine and cheese, photography, Land-Rovers, international Rugby, in no particular order, and sees himself as a developing epicurean. Rupert lives with the fundamental belief that life must be lived and savoured, and that it is essentially too short an amount of time to do and see all there is to be done and seen. He has always sought that magical balance which very few people ever find, where work and the rest of life integrate perfectly, resulting in an ongoing sense of adventure and unravelling of the mysteries of life and the Earth. Rupert is presently embarking on relocating to British Columbia from Alberta, where he is developing Ursus International to include a study center facility of its own.