For immediate release:
April 7, 2021
Contact:
David Pearl 202-483-7382
Wellsville, Utah – Led by a costumed bear mascot and signs that read “Baby animals belong to their mothers,” PETA supporters will join forces with the Utah Animal Rights Coalition on Thursday to protest the “Bear World in Yellowstone” photo-op organized by Americans. Western Heritage Center – Takes tiny cubs from their mothers and hands the frightened cubs into the arms of strangers.
When: Thursday, April 8, 4 pm
Where: Outside the Heritage Center of the American West, 4025 S. Hwy. 89-91, Wellsville
“The cubs stay with their mothers for up to two years, playing, exploring and socializing when allowed to be bears,” says Debbie Metzler, deputy director of the PETA Animal Captive Law Enforcement Foundation. “The American Western Heritage Center and the Yellowstone Bear World are both in the Middle Ages and are only interested in using these wonderful animals as selfie props.”
PETA notes that Yellowstone Bear World breeds bear cubs and takes them away from their mothers – when they are just a few weeks old and before they even opened their eyes to see their mothers – every year for use at community events. When the cubs grew too large for public contact, the Yellowstone Bear World sent them to other roadside zoos or exotic animal wholesalers, including the notorious “Joe Exotic” from King of tigers… Over the past decade, the Yellowstone Bear World has sent at least 60 cubs and 19 adult bears to Gregg Woody, an Illinois animal dealer known to send bears to slaughter.
PETA – whose motto is, in part, that “the animals are not ours to be used for entertainment” – opposes arrogance, a worldview focused on human superiority.
For more information please visit PETA.org or subscribe to the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram…