The BEAR League launches

‘Grim Reaper/Don’t Feed Our Bears’
educational campaign

July 5, 2004   Homewood, CA

Volunteers from all around the Tahoe Basin and Truckee are out hanging posters depicting an artist’s painting of the Grim Reaper handing a bear cub a cookie, with the caption boldly emblazoned above the cub’s head “Don’t Feed Our Bears”.

“We gave up on trying to talk to people or on expecting them to read our warnings, and instead decided to go with a powerful image getting the message through” said Ann Bryant, the League’s executive director. “Our goal is to have this poster in every shop, restaurant, hotel/apartment lobby, any place of business, in hopes that it will be seen and acknowledged by every single resident and visitor to Tahoe”

In the wake of several recent bear deaths on the Nevada side of Tahoe and several attempts to kill bears along with one accidental shooting by a sheriff’s deputy on the California side, as well as the peak summer tourist season, the timing is right for getting this message out.

The BEAR League has been working on solving the bear/human conflict problem for 6 years and has, in the process, learned that inevitably, if a bear is fed by humans, whether deliberately or inadvertently (garbage) he is not long for this world. He will soon forage near homes and will be considered a threat by some and his life will be taken. Or he will be hit on the road while crossing from the forest into the neighborhoods. Just since the year 2000 seventy-seven bears have been killed on the California side by cars or by Department of Fish and Game depredation permits.

“We are inviting our bears into our neighborhoods with easy access to food and garbage and then killing them for taking us up on an offer no bear can refuse” said Bryant. “People need to live and vacation in bear territory in a responsible manner, and that means keeping our food and garbage away from the bears”

Lucinda Sayre, the artist who painted the powerful image, has been a BEAR League member since its founding. She was commissioned by the board of directors to paint a statement on canvas when the importance of getting this message through became undeniable. “The task before me was a little daunting at first but then it came to me, the Grim Reaper, a sign of death, handing a tidbit of food to an innocent bear cub, what a great image!”