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Worldwide, many bear populations face increasing threats from habitat loss and fragmentation, demographic limitations, and loss of genetic diversity. Managing these small populations presents special challenges requiring organized, quick, efficient responses from limited personnel and resources if a small population is to persist. Local wildlife managers can use strategic planning to help to focus their conservation efforts by defining conditions necessary to sustain a threatened population in terms of habitat needs, public support for conservation, and mortality limitation. Managers can develop a program that will address how to obtain the conditions specified in the strategic plan. To define conditions that will allow a population to persist, strategic planners must describe the desired future condition for the major factors affecting the population. To achieve this desired future condition, a strategic targeting approach should be used. Strategic targeting is an ordered approach to: (1) identify problems limiting bear populations and rank their importance; (2) identify who has the most influence and control over these problems; (3) assign responsibilities to address these problems; (4) develop an approach to minimize the threat and eliminate the problem; and (5) schedule the actions necessary and monitor the success of the actions. Management efforts to conserve small bear populations are often costly and may require significant changes in human use of bear habitat. Such changes are not casually accepted by the general public, or by people interested in resource development. Credible data and monitoring are necessary both to monitor management activities and to maintain them over the period necessary to achieve results. Implementing conservation efforts usually cannot wait until monitoring data are available. However, monitoring can improve and refine conservation efforts as data are gathered. Successful monitoring requires annual application of methods to be used by management agencies with minimal disturbance to the population. Data from monitoring can help convince the public of the need to conserve the population and to direct and improve conservation actions so they continue to address the problems facing the population. I outline a strategic targeting approach for conservation of small populations emphasizing biological and habitat parameters that can be monitored and describe how to organize a conservation program to establish such monitoring.