Bear Safety Presentation

Maureen Enns is an internationally celebrated investigative artist/photographer and co-author of the national best-selling books, Grizzly Heart and “Grizzly Seasons” and most recently Wild Horses, Wild Wolves at the foot of the Canadian Rockies. She is well known for her groundbreaking research with Charlie Russell concerning human co-existence with grizzly bears in Russia’s Far East. Her focus was on the emotions of bears and the body language bears use with each other to avoid conflict which can be copied by humans.

She has 2 post graduate degrees and 20 years of teaching experience at the Alberta College of Art & Design where she was a leader in innovative learning practices. Maureen has garnered numerous national and international awards in the visual arts and writing which include those from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Calgary Region Arts Foundation and the Canada Council.

Through the Eyes of the Bear, a multimedia art exhibition opened the new Art Gallery of Calgary in 2000 and continued on Slovenia, Paris, France; and the Moscow Contemporary Art Centre, Russia (sponsored by the Canadian Embassy in Moscow).

Monarchas Maripiosas was exhibited in Calgary at Masters Gallery in 2010 following a photographic expedition into the Sierra Madre of Mihoacan in Mexico. Her drawings brought attention to the slow decline of the Monarchs due to the spraying of pesticides throughout the USA on the milkweed.

She has been the subject of 2 CBC TV documentaries; Games End, 1990; Grizzly Kingdom, 1993. She and former research partner, Charlie Russell, were the subject of the documentary Walking with Giants; according to PBS, the most popular documentary produced on human/animal interaction.  Pyramid Productions Inc., Calgary, produced a documentary based on Maureen's study and art about the wild horses of the Alberta Ghost Forest, titled, Wild Horses of the Canadian Rockies, released on Animal Planet in August 2008. Her understanding of the body language of bears to avoid conflict was pivotal in unraveling the relationship between a wild horse herd and a wolf pack.

In 2018 she exhibited in Zipolite, Oaxaca, Mexico A Naked Plastic Sea, focusing on turtles and sea birds that become entangled in six-pack plastic rings floating in the sea.

“Caballos” was exhibited at her Ghost Ranch Studio September, 2022.