Special Delivery: Roadside Zoo Receives Lumps of Coal for Christmas

PETA ‘Gift’ Will Slam the Union County Sportsmen’s Club for Continued Abuse of Dillan the Bear

For Immediate Release:
December 11, 2019

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Christmas is coming early to the Union County Sportsmen’s Club this year with a special delivery from PETA: 10 bags of coal, one for every year that Dillan—a morbidly obese, arthritic Asiatic black bear with severe dental disease—has spent at the roadside zoo. PETA has repeatedly offered to cover all the costs of transferring him to an accredited sanctuary, but the club has refused.

“As families celebrate the holidays, Dillan will be in his cramped, concrete-floored cage as always, rocking back and forth in misery,” says PETA Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Brittany Peet. “PETA is calling on the Union County Sportsmen’s Club to do the right thing this Christmas and send Dillan to an accredited sanctuary, where he can have some peace on Earth at last.”

A recent U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspection report cited the facility for denying Dillan adequate veterinary care, including for his painful and severe dental issues, in violation of the federal Animal Welfare Act. His teeth have continued to worsen, with multiple broken and discolored ones and at least one evident leaking abscess. The report notes that the “severity and chronic nature of these dental issues are likely to have caused the bear a significant amount of pain over a long period of time and the condition of the teeth have continued to deteriorate since first documented in 2017.”

The report also notes Dillan’s morbid obesity and limited mobility—conditions shared by a geriatric bobcat at the facility—as well as his abnormal rocking behavior, which is often an indicator of pain or psychological distress. The report concludes that the club has made “no plans to pursue any diagnostics or treatment to diagnose or alleviate any discomfort the animals might be experiencing.”

PETA opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.