HAB: $5,000 Reward after bear found with 'Trump 2020' Sticker on collar

Asheville -- A local organization, Help Asheville Bears needs public's assistance to find those responsible for political stickers placed on two bears. The following is a post from HAB's Facebook account.

Bears are NOT Billboards! Second black bear in Asheville,NC confirmed with political sticker on tracking collar. ???

HAB is offering a $5,000 reward for information on the person(s) responsible for putting this political sticker on this beautiful bear who has already been trapped, tranquilized, and collared unnecessarily. This bear must wear this burdensome collar (now with a sticker) and bolts in its ears for worthless data.
On September 6, 2019, the Asheville Citizen-Times ran a story of a bear with a similar sticker on it. Today, a follower sent in these pictures of a bear with a similar sticker, however, on one bear the sticker is horizontal on the tag and on the other bear it is diagonal. This makes it twice that someone has put a political sticker on a bear’s collar in Asheville. ??
Whoever put these political stickers on these bears is cruel and heartless. HAB and our followers hope to stop and expose you. This is now the second bear this happened to, which can only mean either someone in the study is doing this or it is someone in the public. Either way, a full investigation needs to be done. Thank you to the amazing follower who sent this report and the pictures to us in order to help get this stopped. HAB agrees 100% with what you say below and we are so thankful to have a true fighter for animals, like you, standing up for the bears. You are a true animal lover and we all applaud your efforts to expose who did this. ❤️?
Let’s spread the reward and advertise whoever is using our precious bears as a billboard for advertisements.
Contact HAB with any tips: 1-855-SOS-BEAR

Link to story on first bear reported with political sticker:

https://www.citizen-times.com/…/answer-man-trum…/2219223001/

Message from follower who reported information and pictures today:
“Today I was surprised to find this visitor on my front porch. We live in North Asheville and are frequently visited by bears. Our neighborhood does its best to peacefully coexist with the bears and have few problems-- and the problems we do have are usually because we forget to secure our garbage cans.
We have been visited by collared bears for the last 2-3 years. When I first started seeing the collars, I was very concerned about their comfort and safety. The collars are heavy and the bears are obviously uncomfortable, especially when becoming adapted to the heavy appliances. I was able to find out that the bears were collared by the North Carolina Urban/Suburban Bear Study and on May 12, 2019, I spoke with a member of this organization who assured me the bears were safe and that the collars were used to improve bear safety through research. The group sounded committed to protecting our Urban bears and promoting their health and well being.
That is why I was shocked to see this on the bear's collar today. I believe this is an abhorrent practice. These bears are already suffering enough with the heavy collars and metal ear mutilations. But to put a political sticker on the collar? No words can describe my anger and sadness. I have reached out to North Carolina Urban/Suburban Bear Study number that I had from May 19, 2019, as well as North Carolina Wildlife Resources, but have not heard back from either.

I hope that someone can help identify the organization and person or persons who did this and that appropriate actions are taken. This should not be hard to do because there has to be a database of bears tagged and the tagger in any credible research organization. It will be easy to identify the specific bear because we have the date, time and the exact location of the bear that can correlated with collar GPS data.

Thank you very much,“
Shelia North Asheville

—————————————————————
Please like and follow HAB, email Amazon, and sign and share the petition to all you possibly can to finally end the cruelty caused by steel jaw traps and snares. Please ask your friends and family to do the same. Thousands of these traps have been sold by Amazon for years around the world. These are the same steel jaw traps and snares that have caused a historic tragedy of 20 bears confirmed missing limbs from trap escapes. Nineteen of these are in the Blue Ridge/Smoky Mountains. Eighteen of these are in a 90 mile radius of Asheville, NC.
The more followers these bears have, the louder their voice will be heard and their tragedy can be known around the world.

www.facebook.com/HelpAshevilleBears

https://www.change.org/HelpTheBears-Animals_StopTheTraps

Amazon email: jeff@amazon.com

Raising awareness & sharing info about the many black bears being seen in the Asheville area with missing legs with the intent of finding the person(s) responsible or any info on how this is happening. We will never seek funds from the