Bearadise Ranch Targeted in New PETA Video With Oscar Winner Mark Rylance

Bridge of Spies Star Urges Fans to Steer Clear of Facilities Hosting Traveling Wild-Animal Acts

For Immediate Release:
December 11, 2018

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Just days before bears will be forced to perform for tourists at Bearadise Ranch‘s holiday event on Saturday, actor Sir Mark Rylance is encouraging kind people to stay away from the roadside zoo in a new PETA campaign that details how traveling shows chain and torment bears.

The video contains footage of some of Bearadise Ranch’s 12 bears, who live at the Myakka City–based facility during the traveling act’s off-season and are made to perform there during public tours. The Ready Player One star says, “Wherever you see bears performing, they’re suffering. That’s the fact of the matter. Please don’t buy a ticket.” He states, “Speaking as an actor, we should be clever enough to entertain people ourselves without putting animals through this kind of torture.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—notes that in the wild, bears are active for up to 18 hours a day and spend their time exploring diverse terrain, climbing, digging, foraging, and building nests. But while on the road for Bearadise Ranch’s traveling shows, they’re kept inside cramped transport cages in which they can barely turn around, let alone escape from their own waste. During performances, they’re forced to push a cart, carry a basketball while walking on their hind legs, and pull hoops over their heads, among other unnatural types of behavior.

Rylance joins a long list of celebrities—including Alec Baldwin, Eva Mendes, Casey Affleck, Penélope Cruz, Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Alan Cumming, Taraji P. Henson, and many others—who’ve teamed up with PETA to help protect animals.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.