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Animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is planning to pay for a billboard in Longview that shows a brown bear chomping down on a man’s leg with the message “Payback is Hell. Leave Animals Alone.” The billboard is in response to a Sept. 4 Daily News article about 60-year-old Longview bow hunter Jerry Hause.

Hause says he and his son were hunting for deer in the Abernathy Creek area west of Longview when he ran into a black bear. Hause said the bear, which he believed was a sow with cubs, charged him. He escaped the animal by scaling a nearby tree but not before the bear bit down on his leg and then scraped his leg with its claws. By holding on to a limb above him, Hause said he was able to use his other leg to kick the bear in the nose, which drove it off.

In a press release sent out Wednesday, PETA said the “surprising role reversal” of a bear biting a hunter led to the decision to put up a billboard.

“No one wants to be treated like a living target or to suffer and die -- not humans or any other animals,” said PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA’s billboard is a reminder that hunting means causing fear, pain, suffering and death, and there’s nothing ‘sporting’ about it.”