Life-size statues painted by city artists for a public art installation called "Bears on Parade" are popping up as part of an effort to raise awareness that if you live in Anchorage, you live near bears. "The whole point of this was to engage in conversation about bears and their habitat — the food that they eat, where they live," said Brenda Carlson, a tourism official who helped organize the program. The rest of Anchorage includes national forest, a state wildlife refuge, 55 to 65 grizzlies and 250 to 350 black bears. The panel wanted to coordinate the installation of statues with a summer conference of 700 international bear scientists brought to Anchorage by the International Association for Bear Research & Management.