Five years ago, Shannon Donahue read a newspaper story about a biologist who studied interactions between people and bears along the Chilkoot River.

“I didn’t realize before then that there was a whole field of study on human-bear interactions,” Donahue said.

Several years of field work and a master’s degree later, Donahue is the new bear monitor at Chilkoot, charged with keeping the peace between anglers, wildlife viewers, and brown bears in the narrow, mile-long strip between Lutak Inlet and Chilkoot Lake.

Her boss, state park ranger Preston Kroes, said he hopes Donahue eventually will help develop a management plan for the area, working alongside state wildlife biologist Anthony Crupi, who penned the study of Chilkoot bear interactions that drew Donahue into the field.

“When I saw the (monitor) job advertised, I sort of felt I was destined for it,” Donahue said this week.

On Tuesday, she started work as a specialist for the Haines state parks office. She’ll help maintain parks until bears start showing up in numbers at Chilkoot, typically in August.

Donahue grew up outside Boston and the TV show “Grizzly Adams” helped stoke her lifelong interest in bears. She arrived in Alaska eight years ago with a creative writing degree, but jobs in Denali National Park and one at Portage Glacier near Girdwood giving bear safety talks prompted her to return to school.

She recently earned a master’s degree in environmental studies with a focus on bear conservation and education. She said that instead of just studying bears, she “wanted to do something proactive, to give back to the wildlife.”

Donahue worked three seasons at Anan Wildlife Observatory, a remote bear-viewing site 30 miles south of Wrangell where brown and black bears congregate to feast on pink salmon. She worked as an interpreter and biological technician, part of a crew of six who manage the site for the U.S. Forest Service. As many as 60 use permits are issued there daily.

Donahue also worked a season as a bear monitor and observer on the Russian River in Kenai, where hundreds of sport fishermen jockey with brown bears for the best fishing holes.

She’s seen a person shoot pepper spray toward an unaggressive bear from hundreds of feet away, and more than once watched an angler casting a fly over the back of a bear. “You’d be amazed at what you see on the Russian River.”

Introducing logic is her typical approach toward people who get dangerously close to a brown bear. “On vacation, people aren’t always thinking about the reality of the situation. Just saying, ‘That is a wild bear’ is sometimes enough” to get them to back off.

Cameras, she said, can become a “psychological shield” between bears and people who would otherwise keep a safer distance.

Another approach is to remind people that bears can run 35 mph, or to tell them that bears can be stressed without appearing aggravated. When such methods don’t work, she’ll raise her voice to bear viewers or remind them that harassing wildlife is against the law.

As monitor, Donahue may carry a gun, which also tends to help get people’s attention. “It helps people realize the situation is more serious than they may think it is.”

On the Russian River, however, she said she preferred packing just a can of pepper spray, as many people there carried guns unnecessarily.

“You have to find a happy medium in there. I have to assess where (a person) is coming from. You don’t want to unduly alarm people by carrying a gun.”

Donahue said people new to bear country often come with one of two disparate stereotypes about the animals: that they’re cute and cuddly, or they’re ferocious man-eaters. Coastal bears like the ones at Chilkoot, however, have a fairly neutral reaction toward humans.

Donahue received her degrees from the University of Montana. In Missoula, she also worked as an outreach coordinator for the Great Bear Foundation, giving bear awareness programs for schoolchildren and the public.

 Ranger Kroes said he was pleased to have Donahue joining the staff, saying her experience and knowledge would be a huge asset to his office, the community and especially the Chilkoot. The state has hired bear monitors previously, but Donahue’s five-month position represents the first time the job has been made permanent.