Bear Safety for Restaurants

Bears love food, and have  successfully entered restaurants in Whistler Village many times, placing humans and bears at risk. 

Whistler’s Bear Smart Restaurant Program 

Bears play an important role in Whistler and are part of a healthy ecosystem. We must manage attractants vigorously, if we want to coexist with bears.

In 2011 an iconic bear named Jeanie was killed when she entered a restaurant. The Bear Smart Restaurant Program was started by the Get Bear Smart Society and the Resort Municipality of Whistler to train restaurant staff to ensure that more bears would not face the same preventable death as Jeanie. Whistler’s Bear Smart Restaurant Program offers restaurant staff and managers practical and cost effective solutions to minimize human-bear conflict at their workplace—most of which can be easily avoided.

Eating at a Bear Smart recognized restaurants means that the staff in the restaurants have undergone Bear Smart training and follow Bear Smart practices. Choosing to eat at a Bear Smart recognized restaurant is choosing to support an establishment that is an active part of the community and cares about protecting Whistler’s bears.

Complete the Bear Smart Restaurant Program in three easy steps: 

  1. An initial consultation is conducted with the restaurant to review current practices with recommendations to follow. Contact bearaware@whistler.ca to set up a meeting.
     
  2. The program is presented to the restaurant manager, and staff are trained.  Once the staff are trained we provide a free window decal so the public know that you are a Bear Smart Restaurant.
     
  3. We follow up with each restaurant to evaluate program implementation and assist where needed.