No Heart at All! Three Bears General Store is PETA’s ‘Grinch of the Year’
For Immediate Release:
December 16, 2024
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
PETA is sending its “Grinch of the Year” award and a lump of coal, to Three Bears General Store, a tourist trap in Pigeon Forge that confines two black bears to a barren concrete pit, denying them the ability to forage, roam, or hibernate. The greedy operation charges tickets for the public to gawk at them and feed them dog biscuits.
“The Three Bears General Store is a bear’s worst nightmare,” says PETA Foundation Senior Director of Captive Wildlife Debbie Metzler. “PETA is calling on the public to avoid this dismal dump until it grows a heart and relinquishes the bears imprisoned there to an accredited sanctuary.”
Bears love to climb and explore, develop strong attachments to other bears, and have been seen maneuvering tree stumps to gather out-of-reach food and using rocks as “exfoliators” to shed excess fur. But bears like those at Three Bears General Store are held prisoner, their world reduced to small concrete-floored enclosures or pits in sleazy roadside zoos. Many bear cubs are taken from their upset mothers as infants and exploited for cruel photo ops, denying them any semblance of a natural life or a scintilla of pleasure.
PETA has rescued 80 bears from private owners, roadside zoos, and the entertainment industry since 2012. PETA has an open offer to rehome the bears held at Three Bears General Store from their current dismal situation there to a lush, reputable sanctuary.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
