A black bear has been pick out wandering around North Carolina with a Trump 2020 sticker slap on its tracking collar . Political dedication aside , wildlife experts are warning that this is a jerky stunt and potentially serious for both the bear and the public .
The inglorious bear was photograph on July 31 while submit a quick sleep on a porch in north Asheville , North Carolina . As the image show , someone managed to use a spine corroborate Donald Trump ’s 2020 presidential military campaign on the trailing tag of the bear . The bear is also agree with two tags in its ears , which are also used to track its whereabouts .
help oneself Asheville Bears(HAB ) , who were among the first to share the picture , were initially look to find the perpetrator by offering a $ 5,000 reward for any entropy about the persons responsible . The group started monitoring dim bears around Asheville following numerous composition of three - legged bears that lose their limbs to illegal traps .
Speaking to IFLScience , Jody Williams from HAB enunciate they have since found and contacted the person who hold the paster . The soul claim he applied the paster as a dissent against the function of tag and collars on local bears .
" He ’s agreed to stop as this has garner fate of attention , specially on the tags and collars , " explained Williams .
Needless to say , scientist have strongly condemned the protest . The trailing devices are used by researchers from North Carolina State University and the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission to conglomerate data on black bear ecology in an urban setting . The researchers on the project say the stunt could put local multitude and bears in danger .
" Whoever has done this has helped this bear become food for thought dependent . Doing so has put both public safety and the bear at risk , " Dr Chris DePerno , a preservation biologist who is demand in the Asheville bear survey programme , order in a program line to IFLScience .
" The likeliest explanation for the sticker is that someone has habituated this bear to the point where it has miss its lifelike wariness of people , belike by fertilise it , " Dr DePerno continued .
" Researchers are not responsible for for this disturbing incident . These pro would never politicize their research or objectify the creature in this fashion . "
unluckily , this is the second fourth dimension in recent eld a pricker has been placed on a bear ’s trailing collar .
The focus of the concern is n’t just on hoi polloi ; there are also worries for the bear . The sticker is brightly colored and dumbfound out against the bear ’s disconsolate pelt , which could mess up with its power to stealthily hunt for quarry and makes it more susceptible to hunters . Ironically , the Trump Administration has made it easier for hoi polloi to kill bears byopening up wildlife refuges to huntingandloosening restrictionsof bear hunt , so it ’s unconvincing they would get its vote .
contraband bearsare North America ’s most common bear , incur across 12 province and territories of Canada , six states of northerly Mexico , and 41 US country . While this unsure mintage is not as aggressive as their grizzly full cousin , they have been known to aggress humans if they ’re hungry , chevy , or threatened .
In other bizarrely come to event , a frigid bear was espy in late-2019 with“T-34 ” scrawled on its bodyin black spray paint . How someone got close enough to a polar bear is anyone ’s hypothesis .
