Battle Over Tahoe Bears Gets Ugly

A Lake Tahoe woman is suing a longtime bear protection group after she says she got death threats for reporting an aggressive black bear to Nevada authorities, who then killed the animal.

Adrienne Evans, a professional mountain bike racer and high school science teacher, accuses the BEAR League of igniting an ugly social media campaign that turned into a vengeful attempt to run her and her husband out of town. She said she loves bears and wasn't trying to get the animal killed.

The lawsuit seeks up to $50,000 in damages from the nonprofit bear group and its founder Anne Bryant for engaging in a "libelous smear campaign" on the north shore's wealthy enclave of Incline Village.

Earlier this month, the group's lawyer asked in a motion to dismiss the suit in Reno's Washoe District Court, calling it a "meritless" attempt to stifle free speech.

The BEAR League opposes state officials killing problem bears, saying that they should instead be returned to the wild and that humans need to take more steps to keep food away from the animals. Some activists have recently taken to organizing vigils near state-set traps to intentionally scare the bears away.

Richard and Adrienne Evans -who races under her maiden name, Schneider - said they called authorities to their condo in December 2013 after a bear broke into their vehicle. It attempted similar break-ins twice in the weeks before, and Nevada Department of Wildlife officials had tranquilized the same bear, captured it and released it to the wild in the months before that.

Because it was a repeat offender that continued to be aggressive toward humans, game wardens trapped it again and euthanized it.

That's when the Evans' say their nightmare began.

"BEAR League volunteers began to make false and malicious statements and accusations ... in a vicious and calculated effort to damage her reputation and instill fear in Adrienne and others who might call" about aggressive bears, according to the lawsuit that Reno lawyer Sean Rose filed in December. Some postings identified her racing sponsors, it said, and urged the public to harass the couple so "they would lose their jobs and/or feel threatened enough to move out of the community." One anonymous Facebook posting called for Evans to be killed, the lawsuit said.

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