NY Rejects Passaic County's Bi-Pedaling Bear

BLOOMINGDALE, N.J. -- A Bloomingdale woman plans to take a petition with nearly 286,000 signatures to Trenton on Tuesday, Nov. 10 to help a wandering bear forced to walk upright.

Pedals needs our help. He needs to be trapped and relocated to a sanctuary to live a peaceful life. He is starving to death and suffering.

Photo Credit: S Pugs

Pedals walks on his hind legs because one front paw is missing and the other is injured.
Photo Credit: *FACEBOOK photo*

Ann Smith

11/08/2015 5:30 a.m.

New York State officials recently announced that they won't take "Pedals" into their nature center because they already had an injured bear.

The announcement came less than a month after Lisa Rose-Rublack launched her petition campaign.

"We don't think he'll make it through another winter," she told Daily Voice at the time.

Pedals travels through various neighborhoods in the Oak Ridge and North Passaic area on his hind legs looking for food. A front paw is missing and another seems injured, forcing him to walk upright and leaving him unable to run or climb.

A GoFundMe fundraiser -- "Getting Pedals the Help He Deserves" -- had amassed nearly $23,500 as of Saturday.

A representative of the Ophaned Wildlife Center in Otisville, N.Y., initially said officials there would be happy to take Pedals. But the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) said it already had a special needs bear.

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