Please encourage our Refuse company(s) to put an article about BIRD-FEEDING in their bill. My neighbor not only hangs a huge bird-feeder from a tree that bears have climbed, but he also scatters birdseed every day next to his house. It not only invites bears, it invites rodents. My neighbors think they are doing a good thing, and they would get offended with anyone trying to discus it with them. Also, I called Tahoe Wildlife Care last year about this, and they did not seem to think feeding the birds was a problem! As much as I like & support Tahoe Wildlife Care – I disagree totally with this thinking. No wild animals should be fed by humans (unless they are recovering in a facility like the Wildlife Care facility). People need to be educated about this…because, most people “think from the hip” – not the head! Please encourage our utilities to educate about this, so that problem does not get worse!

There is a tendency to view tourists and part time residents as the main problem when it comes to creating nuisance bears. However, I’ve heard a number of permanent residents boast about their neighborhood having a “pet bear” that makes regular rounds and is fed by the residents. HUGE mistake — and a mistake that will impact other people and ultimately result in the death of the “pet” bear.

The core message about not feeding bears is both well made and timely. But I take exception to the statement that “We [NDoW] had to humanely euthanize a bear last year….The bear had become a threat to public safety…..The bear’s behavior was disturbing because it had no fear of humans.” In fact, there was no evidence at all that this bear “had become a threat.” NDoW’s definition of threat is a self-fulfilling prophesy: any bear that becomes familiar with people is, by NDoW’s definition, a threat. Any threat must be eliminated. Thus, what you really mean is that this bear stumbled into an urban area and was killed because of that simple error. This is the same unscientific nonsense that we hear every time NDoW puts down a bear and it’s simply untrue. There is no evidence whatsoever that “no fear of humans” equates to a “threat.” In fact, according to one of the leading bear biologists, Dr. Stephen Stringham, the opposite might be true. By removing bears we leave holes in the population, holes that are quickly filled by newcomers. While the bear that was killed has not harmed or attempted to harm anyone, we have no idea of how the newcomer will behave. The newcomer will most likely be a wildland bear, and nearly 95% of all bear attacks are committed by wildland bears. Since the bear NDoW killed had no history of aggression, the newcomer cannot be any safer. It can only be the same or more dangerous. Statistically, therefore, NDoW is actually increasing the risk of attack with each bear they kill or relocate. Furthermore, by killing the known passive bears NDoW is shifting “natural” selection in favor of more aggressive bears, making the overall population more dangerous with each generation. In other words, essentially the entire core of NDoW’s urban bear management program is fundamentally at odds with modern behavioral science. Even their own external expert, Dr. Beckmann, has gone on record saying that NDoW’s management methods do not work. It’s time to change those.