Animal Rights Protest Scuttles Baylor Bear
October 13, 2003
The Associated Press
WACO, Texas - Complaints from an animal rights group
have prompted Baylor University to change its
decades-old practice of bringing its mascot — a black
bear — to home football games.
Veterinarians said crowd noise could agitate the bear,
and the decision follows a protest that began last
year by members of Showing Animals Respect and
Kindness, or SHARK.
The school's "bear pit" actually houses two female
North American black bears. The group claimed the
bears were driven into a state of psychosis because
they were kept in a mostly concrete environment.
"I think it took someone from the outside looking in
and saying, 'Wait a minute,'" said Colleen Gardner
said, whose son visited the campus in July 2002 and
filmed hours of footage of the bears.
Baylor officials denied the animals were being
harmed, citing satisfactory inspections by the
Agriculture Department.
Baylor spokesman Larry Brumley said the school
planned to start an $800,000 fund-raising drive to
upgrade the bear pit, which was built in 1976.
It's not the first time the school changed its bear
program, which is more than 70 years old. In recent
years, trainers stopped feeding the animals Dr.
Pepper, which was created in Waco in 1885 and is the
official Baylor soft drink.
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