Can Stephen Colbert Help End Bear-Baiting in South Carolina?

Two weeks ago, we wrote about cause leader Ian McIntyre’s petition to end bear-baiting in South Carolina. The petition had 70,000 signatures when we first published the story. Last week, the petition achieved another milestone as more than 100,000 people have signed, showing their support to end cruelty to bears in that state. This week we chatted with Ian about his next steps for the petition, including getting a high-profile celebrity to publicly endorse the cause.

Ian told us he is beyond excited about the progress of his petition and hopes his newest action will attract more attention to a very serious, almost unbelievable act of cruelty that plays out regularly in South Carolina. “Just the other day my friends and I were talking about how this support is really great. It also got us thinking, ‘We should get someone really famous to acknowledge the petition.’”

Last week, Ian launched a new action on his Stop Bear-Baiting cause asking fellow anti-bear-baiting supporters to tweet at Comedy Central comedian Stephen Colbert and inform him of the petition. If you are unfamiliar with the comedian, Colbert is the host of the “Colbert Report,” a satirical comedy news show with a pseudo-conservative slant. Colbert is also a native South Carolinian and hasn’t shied away from delving into his state’s topical  matters in the past. All of this inspired Ian to forge ahead with plans to hopefully entice Colbert to talk about the issue.

As of today, more than 3,300 supporters have pledged to send a tweet and more than 1700 tweets with the #SaveColBEAR hashtag are traveling through the Twitter-sphere engaging a wide array of users along the way.

Can Ian get Colbert Nation to help put pressure on South Carolina’s legislature to pass anti-bear-baiting laws? You can participate by tweeting this message yourself: Nation! @StephenAtHome What do South Carolina & Pakistan have in common: Bear-baiting! http://bit.ly/SaveColBEAR via @causes #SaveColBEAR

We’ll keep you posted on Ian’s progress!