North Carolina Town Latest to Name Bigfoot as Its 'Official Animal'

Marion, North Carolina, a small town nestled beneath the Blue Ridge Mountains with a population of just over 7,800, is the latest municipality to declare Bigfoot as its 'official animal.'

The proclamation is largely ceremonial, according to town officials, but it serves to acknowledge that a portion of their population believes in the existence of the elusive wood ape.

“Well, we thought the (proclamation) idea was different,” Town Manager Bob Boyette told The Charlotte Observer. “Who is to say what’s out there? Nobody knows for sure, and there are some smart people who are convinced it’s real.”

The move could also increase tourism. The proclamation takes effect on September 8th, which marks Marion's annual Bigfoot festival.

And even though mayor Stephen Little said he's never seen Bigfoot personally, he admitted that anyone coming to Marion might.

Marion was the site of a Bigfoot sighting in August of 2017 that made national news after the nearby Greenville Police Department posted a tongue-in-cheek warning to their Facebook page asking residents not to shoot Bigfoot.

"If you see Bigfoot, please do not shoot at him/her, as you'll most likely be wounding a fun-loving and well-intentioned person, sweating in a gorilla costume," it read.

The lighthearted warning came as a response to local group Bigfoot 911 having claimed to encounter Bigfoot in a forested area near Marion.

The town of Marion's proclamation comes just two months after the village of Whitehall in New York declared Bigfoot as its own 'official animal,' and in the same year that a Washington state senator reintroduced a bill that would designate Sasquatch as the state's 'official cryptid.'