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Binghamton University in New York has decided to introduce a live-animal mascot: a 5-month-old bearcat named Bing. 😒 Life for live-animal mascots is filled with fear, stress, and chaos. Please urge the university to reconsider its plan!
The school partnered with the sleazy Animal Adventure Park to get Bing from a roadside zoo, so you know the bearcat has already faced extreme exploitation. During a university press conference, Bing tried to get off the table but was restrained. When the university president touched him, the bearcat urinated—prob out of distress. 😢 Bing was panting and squirming the whole time, but Animal Adventure Park’s owner kept yapping about how bearcats are super-tolerant of being handled by humans and being in the limelight.
Using live animals as mascots often leads to disaster. For example, at the 2019 Sugar Bowl, the University of Texas–Austin’s longhorn steer mascot, Bevo, charged the University of Georgia’s bulldog mascot, Uga, and nearly trampled him. 😨 Even if animals used as mascots aren’t physically harmed, they’re treated as if they were toys rather than as individuals with interests, personalities, and needs of their own. Bearcats are sensitive animals who live mostly in solitude in the treetops of Southeast Asia. Being forced into a stadium full of bright lights and loud, screaming fans would likely be terrifying for Bing.
Binghamton University already uses a costumed human mascot named Baxter the Bearcat—there’s literally no reason to put Bing through the nightmare of being a live-animal mascot. Please urge the university to reconsider its plan to exploit him!