PETA, UARC Blast Local ‘Baby Animal’ Event, Plan Protest
For Immediate Release:
April 7, 2021
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
Led by a costumed “bear” mascot and carrying signs that read, “Baby Animals Belong With Their Mothers,” PETA supporters will join forces with Utah Animal Rights Coalition on Thursday to protest a Yellowstone Bear World photo op event—hosted by the American West Heritage Center—that removes tiny bear cubs from their mothers and thrusts the frightened young animals into the hands of strangers.
When: Thursday, April 8, 4 p.m.
Where: Outside the American West Heritage Center, 4025 S. Hwy. 89-91, Wellsville
“Bear cubs stay with their mothers for up to two years, playing, exploring, and socializing, if allowed to be bears,” says PETA Foundation Associate Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Debbie Metzler. “The American West Heritage Center and Yellowstone Bear World are in the Dark Ages, only interested in using these wonderful animals as selfie props.”
PETA notes that Yellowstone Bear World breeds baby bears and takes them from their mothers—when they are just weeks old and before they have even opened their eyes and seen their mothers—every year for use in public events. When the cubs have become too large for public contact, Yellowstone Bear World has had them shipped to other roadside zoos or exotic-animal wholesale dealers, including the notorious “Joe Exotic” of Tiger King. Within the last decade, Yellowstone Bear World has sent at least 60 cubs and 19 adult bears to Gregg Woody, an animal broker in Illinois known to send bears to slaughter.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview.
For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
