Written by Alisa Mullins
Update: The Cherokee tribal council's meeting to discuss the closure of the bear pits was postponed until Tuesday, March 19th at 5 p.m. because of bad weather, so please keep letting the council know that public opinion is on the side of the bears. To contact the council members, click on the "Take Action Now" button below.
The following was originally posted on March 5, 2013:
After PETA publicized the findings of our investigation at Chief Saunooke Bear Park, several tribal elders of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians—which owns the land on which Chief Saunooke and other bear pits are located but does not run them—were horrified to learn of the conditions there.
Led by Peggy Hill, a group of elders has proposed a resolution to close all the bear exhibitors on tribal land permanently, and the tribal council is poised to vote on the resolution at its next council meeting this week. Hill told the Associated Press that "[m]ost Cherokee people had no idea what was taking place behind the bars of these roadside zoos" and that the elders are appalled "at the horrible treatment of these jailed bears."
Unfortunately, not everyone is on board with the plan. Chief Saunooke is currently closed, after the U.S. Department of Agriculture suspended its license, but some in the community are pressuring the council to keep the other bear pits open. One of the facilities, Cherokee Bear Zoo, is also making a last-ditch bid for survival by claiming that it wants to remodel itself as a "sanctuary," although if this were its plan, there was nothing stopping it from doing so during all the years that it has been confining bears to barren concrete pits and racking up numerous violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act. The bear exhibitors in Cherokee have proved time and again that they shouldn't have any contact with animals.
You Can Help
Please contact the Cherokee tribal council and urge it to vote in favor of the resolution to close the bear pits permanently and send the bears to reputable sanctuaries.
Written by PETA
Not since a pig farmer told our investigator, "Hurt 'em! There's nobody [who] works for PETA out here," have we recorded so many dumb statements on camera.
Yesterday, we told you how, following PETA's investigation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture fined Chief Saunooke Bear Park and suspended its exhibitor license. These are some of the conversations that helped land the bear abusers in hot water:
1. Bears Biting the Metal Bars
They know the bears are miserable.
2. Hiding Things From the USDA
I'm sure the USDA loved this.
3. Not Feeding the Bears
Jerks!
4. Eating the Bears
Whaaaaat?!
5. Discrimination Against Native Americans (Who Own the Park Land)
That must have gone over well with the landlord.
6. Your Questionable Work Ethic
Things that don't go well together: impaired awareness and handling bears.
7. How to Treat a Lady
Susan's laughing now!
8. OK, so Now Pick Your Jaw Up off the Floor
These guys are so dumb that they could get their own reality show.
9. And Take Action for Bears!
The bear pit has been indefinitely shut down, but we still need your voice to ensure that the animals are safe for good. Sign the petition to request that the USDA immediately confiscate all the bears from the Chief Saunooke Bear Park and place them in a safe, reputable sanctuary.
Written by Michelle Kretzer
After PETA filed multiple complaints with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regarding egregious violations of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) at Chief Saunooke Bear Park, the bear pit must now surrender its exhibitor license. What's more, the license will remain suspended until the dismal facility is able to prove that it's compliant with AWA regulations—if it ever can.
Members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians joined PETA in meeting with the USDA to detail the problems at the Cherokee, North Carolina, roadside zoo. Following our complaints and meeting, the USDA charged the bear pit with more than a dozen violations. Now, the park has agreed to pay a fine and surrender its license in order to settle the case. It's probably a smart move, considering that in a 62-page report that PETA gave to the USDA, bear experts who visited the facility documented that, among other violations, the park was failing to maintain adequate barriers between bears and the public, leading to at least two attacks on visitors thus far. According to the experts, the park also failed to supply food for its public feedings that met the bears' nutritional needs and instead allowed visitors to feed them cat food and Lucky Charms cereal. Among many other abuses, the facility also failed to provide the bears with veterinary care and forced them to eat from filthy, unsanitary food containers.
Barely a month ago, a PETA investigation revealed that staff members were deliberately depriving bears of food and that the animals are so stressed from being constantly confined to small, concrete pits that they pace repeatedly and gnaw at the metal cage bars. Our investigation also uncovered drug use, racism, wage-law violations, and more.
Please ask the USDA to take the next step and confiscate the abused bears.
Written by Jeff Mackey
"If you think dogs can't count, try putting three dog biscuits
in your pocket and then giving Fido only two of them."
—Phil Pastoret
OK, dogs can count, so is it any surprise that bears, with their larger brains, are even better at it? That's the assessment, published in the journal Animal Behavior, from a recent study showing that black bears possess mathematical skills comparable to those of primates—which makes it even sadder to think of all the bears who are counting every day spent in misery, squalor, and utter frustration.
Take the bears held prisoner at Florida's Everglades Wonder Gardens. A few years back, after repeated reports about the horribly inadequate conditions in which they were living, PETA contacted the owner of the sad "attraction," asking him to make at least a few basic improvements, but none were forthcoming. After a visit to the dreadful roadside zoo, PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk described the animals' plight:
There are two bears, described as brothers, in a small cement dog run‒like pen. They have nothing to climb. Both exhibit [stereotypic stress behaviors], one severely—he paces back and forth along an approximately 6-foot section of the back of the chain-link fence, his tongue lolling out of his mouth (I watched him for 12 minutes without letup). The other also paces but sits in the adjoining cement cell some of the time.
That's how these perceptive social animals—who in their natural habitats would spend their days foraging, climbing, cleaning, and exploring—are forced to spend their lives.
Many of you joined PETA in celebrating the recent liberation of Ben the bear, who went from a similarly deficient situation in captivity to a lush new life at a sanctuary. Now, it's time to help the bears at Everglade Wonder Gardens; the Cherokee, North Carolina, bear zoos; and other roadside hellholes gain their freedom, too!
Captive bears are counting on each of us to do our part to help them. Please politely urge federal and Cherokee authorities to take immediate action to help the animals in bear parks. And any time you pass a roadside zoo, just keep on driving.
PETA has submitted a 64-page petition, which includes case studies, photographs, and expert statements, to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) asking the agency to create and apply specific regulations for bears held captive in appalling conditions by exhibitors, dealers, and research facilities. By allowing bears to be kept in squalid cages and concrete pits and denied everything that is natural and important to them, the USDA is clearly failing to ensure anything close to humane treatment of captive bears, in violation of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA).
Last month, PETA successfully used legal action to rescue a bear named Ben, who was kept for six long years at Jambbas Ranch in a cramped cage with a concrete floor. Ben was fed dry dog food once a day and spent most of his waking hours pacing the few square feet allotted to him. Despite Ben's obvious suffering and multiple complaints from PETA and others, USDA inspectors failed to cite Jambbas for violations related to Ben. In state court, however, a judge ruled that the conditions in which he was being kept constituted cruelty to animals, proving that the federal AWA isn't preventing cruelty to captive bears.
While Ben's story has a happy ending, hundreds of other bears will continue to languish in squalid conditions unless the USDA takes action. Roadside zoos like Jambbas and the Cherokee Bear Zoo account for the majority of USDA licensees with captive bears. These shabby facilities keep bears in tiny barren cages or concrete pits with woefully inadequate space, lack of physical or mental stimulation, and inappropriate diets and in conditions that deny the bears any opportunity to engage in natural behavior, such as hibernating and foraging. Because their needs aren't being met, many bears in roadside zoos spend most of their time pacing, cage-biting, and head-butting, which experts agree are signs of distress.
Bears have a natural life span of up to three decades, and some species can have a home range of thousands of miles. According to the International Zoo Yearbook, "[I]t is recognized that bears are extremely difficult and challenging creatures to manage in the captive environment"—just as challenging, according to studies, as primates. For example, in a study of 33 carnivorous species, bears showed the most evidence of stress and psychological dysfunction in captivity. An Oxford University study ultimately concluded that "the keeping of naturally wide-ranging carnivores should be either fundamentally improved or phased out." But the requirements for bears' care currently fall under the AWA's minimum regulations for a wide variety of unspecified species, and the USDA is failing to use these generic regulations to protect bears.
In addition to a specific prohibition on keeping bears in abysmal concrete pit–style enclosures, PETA has proposed regulations that would require that bears be furnished with naturalistic habitats, dens for nesting and hibernation, pools for bathing, enough room to forage and explore, enrichment, and other elements that would improve bears' mental and physical well-being.
Speak up for bears in captivity! Please join PETA in urging the USDA to formulate bear-specific standards to be added to the AWA.
In yet another important development in PETA's campaign to close down the shamefully dilapidated roadside zoos in Cherokee, North Carolina, and elsewhere, which confine bears to desolate pits and concrete pens, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has just released a complaint detailing the charges that it has filed against Chief Saunooke Bear Park for more than a dozen violations of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA). These charges come after PETA filed formal complaints with the agency and joined members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in meeting with the USDA to discuss the problems at this facility.
In April 2010, PETA submitted a report—prepared by leading bear experts who had visited the Cherokee bear zoos—to the USDA, documenting and detailing dozens of violations of the AWA at these wretched facilities.
The USDA charges include failure to provide food for public feeding that was appropriate to the type of animal and his or her nutritional needs, repeated failure to provide adequate veterinary care, housing animals in incompatible groups, and the use of dirty, unsanitary food receptacles—all of which were issues raised in PETA's expert report.
The agency also cited Chief Saunooke Bear Park (pit) for repeated failure to maintain adequate barriers between animals and the public so as to ensure the safety of both. This failure resulted in at least two attacks on visitors to the park, as detailed in a complaint that PETA hand-delivered to the USDA asking it to seek revocation of the zoo's license—and now it's finally doing so, as well as pursuing civil penalties and a cease-and-desist order.
Please urge Michell Hicks, principal chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, to close the pits now and retire the bears to an accredited sanctuary. And, of course, never patronize facilities that keep captive wildlife in cruel conditions.
In a moving TV news report about two bear cubs orphaned near Cherokee, North Carolina, who were rehabilitated and released into their native habitat, Cherokee Chief Michell Hicks commented, "It makes you feel good to know that you were able to help an animal that was in an unfortunate situation." PETA wants Chief Hicks to feel even better, so we're asking him to help other bears in unfortunate situations: those who are languishing in Cherokee's squalid bear pits.
The three roadside zoos on the reservation—Cherokee Bear Zoo, Chief Saunooke Park, and Santa's Land—have all received numerous U.S. Department of Agriculture citations for violations of the Animal Welfare Act, including failing to provide veterinary care, feeding bears moldy food, exposing bears to electrical outlets and sharp metal, and leaving bears' fur caked with feces.
But despite the citations, the bears are still kept in barren concrete cages, where they exhibit neurotic behaviors brought on by the stress of intense confinement, such as pacing, walking in circles, crying, and begging tourists for food.
Chief Hicks said the rehabilitation of the bear cubs showed the kind hearts of the Cherokee people. Ask him to extend that compassion to all bears by working to close the Cherokee bear pits and retire the animals to sanctuaries.
© Comstock/Animals-Wildlife/Getty Images
PETA is calling upon the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to investigate whether the owner of a New Jersey roadside zoo and pet store did enough to prevent a fire in which two giraffes, up to 15 parrots, and several dogs and cats died. The letter also asks the USDA, "[I]f this loss of life is found to have been preventable, … hold Sipp and Animal Kingdom Zoo responsible."
Every day has its share of tragedy for captive wild animals forced to languish in cramped enclosures at roadside zoos and pet stores. The fire at Animal Kingdom Zoo is the second since April, when a fire killed Burton Sipp's wife, Bridget. In the latest fire, a mother giraffe and her calf were locked inside a building, and the mother was crushed to death by a falling wall, raising questions about the facility's structural integrity. Her calf also did not live through the night. Indeed, just over two weeks before this lethal fire, the USDA cited the facility for 19 violations of the Animal Welfare Act, including failure to maintain the structural strength of the giraffe enclosure and numerous other animal enclosures.
Please never visit roadside zoos or facilities that sell animals. You can also help animals at three roadside zoos—Cherokee Bear Zoo, Chief Saunooke Bear Park, and Santa's Land—by clicking here to urge officials to close these dilapidated facilities.
Written by Heather Faraid Drennan
If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.
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