ASHEVILLE, N.C. — Wildlife activists are offering a $5,000 reward to find whoever put a "Trump 2020" campaign sticker on a North Carolina bear's collar.
Sheila Chapman noticed the sticker on the bear’s collar when the animal wandered onto her porch Friday, WLOS reported.
“We have so many places in this world to put stickers and express our political views,” Chapman said. “Using a wild animal for that is cruel and inhuman. It’s not OK.”
She took photos of the sticker and called Help Asheville Bears. The wildlife group offered a reward and chastised whoever was involved in a post on social media. This is the second time a bear has been found with a campaign sticker on its collar.
Bears are NOT Billboards! Second black bear in Asheville,NC confirmed with political sticker on tracking collar....
Posted by Help Asheville Bears-HAB on Friday, July 31, 2020
The bears have collars as part of the North Carolina Urban/Suburban Bear Study, a research project between North Carolina State University and the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission tracking the animals.
Officials are unsure how the sticker ended up on the bear and do not recommend the public putting them on the animals.
“The (way the) sticker wound up there – it had nothing to do with research activities,” Jennifer Strules, a wildlife biologist at N.C. State University working to study the bears in the area, told the Asheville Citizen Times. “We absolutely do not condone anyone approaching a bear at that close of a range to do something like that. It’s incredibly foolhardy and a public safety hazard for someone to do that.”
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