Video: Rescued Animals Dolly the Bear and the Fox Family Happy at Last in Sanctuary Home

For Immediate Release:
January 27, 2022

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

Today, PETA released this brand-new video of Dolly the black bear and a family of three foxes whose lives have all been transformed since PETA and The Wild Animal Sanctuary (TWAS) rescued them from the now-defunct Sunrise Side Nature Trail and Exotic Park in Tawas City in September.

Dolly had spent 21 years at Sunrise Side, confined to a chain-link pen—but at TWAS in Colorado, she enjoys a large pond to swim in and acres of soft ground for roaming and digging. When she comes out of hibernation in the spring, she’ll get to meet new bear companions who share her habitat. Meanwhile, the foxes—a mother, father, and son who lived in a barren pen at Sunrise Side—are thriving at TWAS, with tall grass for them to hide in and plenty of space for them to play.

“At The Wild Animal Sanctuary, Dolly and her fox neighbors receive expert care and can race in the grass, things they were denied at the roadside zoo,” says PETA Foundation Deputy General Counsel for Captive Animal Law Enforcement Brittany Peet. “PETA hopes their story inspires people to act for other wild animals still exploited in sleazy tourist traps.”

Dolly’s and the foxes’ rescue came after the U.S. Department of Agriculture confiscated Grizzy, a bear with an untreated, rotting wound on his forehead, from Sunrise Side. PETA then negotiated an agreement with the operation’s owners for them to release Dolly and the foxes and never again own wild or exotic animals.

More information about Sunrise Side is available here.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information about PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.