Carrying signs that read, “Baby Animals Belong With Their Mothers,” this Saturday supporters of PETA and the Utah Animal Rights Coalition will rally outside a photo op event at the American West Heritage Center, where strangers will crowd and overwhelm cubs and other baby animals from Yellowstone Bear World (YBW). The action comes on the heels of the feds’ recent decision to fine YBW over $6,000 following a PETA complaint and the group’s undercover investigation showing how the facility prematurely separates mothers from their babies.
“Thanks to cruel displays like these, stressed bear cubs make it onto TikTok, but they never make it back to their mothers,” says PETA Foundation Director of Captive Animal Welfare Debbie Metzler. “PETA is calling on the American West Heritage Center and Yellowstone Bear World to stop treating sensitive baby animals like props.”
PETA’s investigation found that a cub with a broken leg was denied prescribed treatment; an irate supervisor threatened to throw a cub across the room; that cubs bit, scratched, and bruised workers; and that cubs deprived of the opportunity to nurse desperately tried to suckle from workers’ chins and arms. YBW uses cubs in bottle-feeding encounters when they’re nearly 5 months old, which was against Idaho law—until YBW lobbied for the removal of state oversight so it could continue this exploitation without accountability, endangering Idahoans and animals.
Where: Outside the American West Heritage Center, 4025 S. Highway 89–91 (near the intersection of 3000 W. and Highway 89), Wellsville
When: Saturday, April 8, 12 noon
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, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
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This post was originally published on Animal Rights and Campaign News | PETA.
