A black bear snacks on birdseed while visiting the home of Greg Perry in Black Mountain this spring. / Special to the Citizen-Times
Written by
Romando Dixson
Anyone with information about a dead, painted bear dumped on a road in Buncombe County is asked to call the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission at 800-662-7137. Callers may remain anonymous. It is a 24-hour hotline.
The conservation group’s addition raises the reward pool to $20,000 for the person or persons who provide information that directly leads to an arrest and criminal conviction, civil penalty assessment or forfeiture of property by the perpetrator. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Service Forest offered the initial $3,000 in reward money.
The $17,000 is the largest amount of reward money the state Wildlife Federation has offered in a poaching case, CEO Tim Gestwicki said Friday.
“This kind of ridiculous behavior necessitates a large reward to get folks to provide some tips,” he said.
“WHATS BRUIN” was written in white paint on the bear’s head, along with “w-h-a-t-s” across the claws on the right paw and “b-r-u-i-n” across the claws on the left paw, the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission said Thursday. The carcass was found this week on a road in northwest Buncombe County.
Authorities believe the paint was referencing Operation Something Bruin, a collaborative undercover investigation focused on the illegal poaching of bears and other wildlife in North Carolina and Georgia.
Ten individuals were convicted this month in U.S. District Court of federal charges stemming from four years of undercover work during Operation Something Bruin [see: NC Bear Poachers Finally Getting Punished.] More cases are pending in Haywood County.
It is unclear how the bear was killed, said Lt. Tim Sisk of the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission.
“We hope the investigation yields results and that the message is crystal clear: poaching, destroying wildlife in any ways, especially cowardly acts of wanton waste in North Carolina, will not be tolerated,” Gestwicki said. “We condemn in full any illegal wildlife violations and remain resolved to assisting state and federal agencies in upholding the regulations and guiding principles of fish and wildlife management.”
The nonprofit conservation group has a wildlife poaching reward fund. Private donors provide the money, Gestwicki said. In July 2012, the state Wildlife Federation offered $15,000 for information about a case in which three elk were shot and killed in May near Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The group usually provides rewards between $1,000 and $5,000 in poaching cases. Gestwicki said can’t recall such an act and described it as atrocious and intolerable.
“We feel strongly that this malicious and cowardly act of illegal activity has no place in North Carolina,” Gestwicki said. “We are upping the ante to hopefully entice anyone with information to come forth. We are providing these resources to underscore the seriousness we place on the poaching and outright desecration of this animal.”
Exposing the Big Game 
Reblogged this on Sherlockian's Blog and commented:
Please help bring the perpetrator(s) to justice.
Reblogged this on Carinas space.
Despite bear hunter abuses in McDowell County to the point that private property owners have turned to hiring armed guards to prevent trespass
there have been no arrests in this area and no convictions for trespass. The NC Wildlife Commission’s Black Bear Committee teaches hunters how to convince private property owners to allow bear hunting on private property and how to train bear dogs. Bear dogs admittedly cannot be controlled and regularly trespass, kill livestock, and pets, spread disease, breed indiscriminately, are often abandoned at shelters, yet laws that govern companion pets do not apply to hunting dogs. It is past time that bear hunting was banned. Killing bears should not be a sport and the taxpayers should not be encoraging bear populations so a miscreant group of bullies and kill them.