PRESS RELEASE

Press Contact: Catherine Burt, Correspondent, Friends of Animals

CARSON CITY AND LAKE TAHOE AREA, NEVADA

The black bears of Nevada’s Lake Tahoe area need you.

black bear

American black bears are the only bears indigenous to Nevada. And with fewer than 300 black bears gracing the state of Nevada, the Board of Wildlife Commissioners has nonetheless launched the state’s first hunt against them, slated to begin in August 2011. This hunt must be stopped, and the Wildlife Commissioners must be held to standards of safety, ecological awareness, and ethics.

The Wildlife Commission does not rely upon any scientific reason for the hunt. Rather, they feel the bear population can withstand the killing of twenty of its members.

The members and supporters of Friends of Animals know that no animal withstands being hunted and killed. Any bear killed by humans is a loss not only to themselves and their own families, but to the entire ecosystem. The presence of bears is vital to the health of the complex habitat in which they live. As omnivores, predators, and scavengers, bears are important seed dispersers. They play a critical role in maintaining healthy, balanced populations of deer, insects, and others.

Friends of Animals Correspondent and activist Catherine Burt denounces the hunt as an extreme form of human aggression and conceit. “Turning wild animals into macabre trophies for a few thrill-seekers deprives an entire bio-community,” says Burt. “Nature does not have spare bears ““ it has to compensate in some way for the each one that is artificially removed.”

The Nevada hunt has been granted to appease a small segment of the population. Most of this board, including its Chair and Vice Chair, represent hunting and animal use interests and say so.

Forty-five tags are to be issued to kill 20 black bears, by bow and arrow or firearms. If allowed to proceed, the hunt would permit the use of dogs to track down and flush out hibernating animals. Since the hunt limits the killing of female bears, dogs would be made to chase bears into trees, so the sex of bears can be examined.

While the hunt prohibits the killing of female bears with cubs, mother bears and cubs terrorized during a hunt can become separated. The young are then left abandoned or orphaned to fend for themselves. Lacking adequate rearing, they may not survive. Those who do are more likely to come into conflict with humans, as they seek out easy food sources provided in suburban environments.

All told, this hunt puts bears, dogs, and humans at risk ““ for the misguided glee of a handful of trophy hunters.

Support the right to arm Nevada’s bears

Arm the bears with your energy and sanity.

Contact Nevada’s Governor Sandoval:

Phone: 775-684-5670

Fax: 775-684-5683

Write to Governor Sandoval

State your opposition to any tormenting or slaughter of bears in Nevada. This is especially important for Nevada residents, but out-of-state and international supporters can boycott Lake Tahoe tourism.

For more information, see the minutes of the 3 December 2010 Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners’ Meeting in which Commissioners planned the bear-killing.

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Friends of Animals, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation founded in 1957, with offices in the U.S. and Canada, advocates for the interests of animals to live in habitat on their own terms.