A video showing a group of people in North Carolina manhandling black bear cubs and taking photos has gone viral.
The scene, captured on camera on Tuesday, shows roughly six people reaching into a tree to remove the cubs and bring them over a fence.
One woman appears to take a selfie with a cub, then drops it and chases after it as it tries to run away.
Ashley Hobbs, a biologist with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, said only one cub remained when she arrived, and described it as being very wet and cold.
The cub appeared unharmed, she said, and was transferred to a rehab facility.
“We do think that the bear probably had a pretty traumatic experience,” Ms Hobbs told local news.
Trees are “baby sitters” for black bear mothers, places where they can keep their young safe while they forage for food, according to the North American Bear Center. The cubs sleep in tree crowns and climb up the trunks to hide if danger appears.
Ms Hobbs said there were risks in separating a cub from its mother, “especially ripped from a tree like that”.
Footage from the scene in Buncombe County shows two or three people tugging at a tree branch to remove a cub, while another cub is seen sitting further up.
Voices from two women recording the video, separate from the group involved, express concern and shock.
“Oh my god, she’s holding the bear,” one woman in the video says. “That’s insane.”
A woman who successfully removed one of the cubs from the tree, holds it up and appears to pose for a photo as the cub wriggles in her grasp. She then appears to drop it.
“Did she just drop it? Oh my gosh it’s running, the poor little thing,” one of the women from the video says.
“Put it back, it’s scared,” the other woman yells out.
Ms Hobbs said she eventually confronted the group responsible for engaging the cubs.
“We let them know how irresponsible and potentially deadly it could be for that cub to be separated from its mom,” she said.
