While the big news out of the Democratic National Convention thus far may be the formal nomination of Joe Biden last night, former NC11 Democratic Congressman Heath Shuler — who held the seat before Rep. Mark Meadows — wants Western North Carolina to know that there’s big news coming tonight as well.

Barbed wire and hundreds of pounds of donuts are the key ingredients in a University of Tennessee Knoxville effort to complete the largest-scale black bear population study ever attempted. 

The 16 million-acre study area covers portions of Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina, but by far the biggest chunk — about 8 million acres — includes portions of 24 WNC counties. Researchers collected data from the other three states last year but are spending the second and last year of the study focused solely on counting bears in North Carolina.