Bob Barker, longtime animal rights activist, asks Cherokees to end NC bear pit attractions
By APWednesday, July 29, 2009
Bob Barker asks Cherokee chief to end NC bear pits
ASHEVILLE, N.C. — Former game show host and longtime animal rights activist Bob Barker has made a personal appeal to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina to stop exhibiting bears in pit-like enclosures at three local zoos.
The Asheville Citizen-Times reported that Barker met Tuesday with Principal Chief Michell Hicks and five members of the Tribal Council. He called the bears’ conditions inhumane and asked that they be turned over to a sanctuary in California.
“To think that with as advanced as our civilization is now that there is any place in the United States were bears are kept in pits is just unbelievable,” said Barker, who is part American Indian and grew up on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. “Just picture yourself, if your life, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, month after month, was in a pit.”
The bears are displayed in walled enclosures set into the ground at three local attractions that bill themselves as zoos and theme parks.
Barker will discuss the meeting at a news conference Wednesday morning in Asheville.
Hicks told the Asheville Citizen-Times that the tribe follows federal regulations in caring for the bears.
Collette Coggins, who owns one of the attractions, the Cherokee Bear Zoo, with her husband, Barry, said the bears don’t stay in the pits all day, every day. “We love our animals,” she said. “They are like our pets.”
Tags: Animal Welfare, Animals, Asheville, Celebrity, Mammals, N.c., North America, North Carolina, Political Activism, Political Issues, United States
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August 31, 2009: 11:07 pm
I just got back from a weekend trip to Cherokee and Tennessee. On our way back home to Georgia we decided to stop in the town of Cherokee to give this bear exhibit and petting zoo a look. Well, I wished I would have never given my money to support such inhumane treatment of animals, and not just your regular everyday animals either. I was shocked and horrified at the confinement of such beautiful creatures. I am an animal lover and I couldn’t imagine doing something like this for a living! The exhibit was soooo tiny. They had at least 4 or 5 bears in one concrete holding cell. When I was giving them treats some of the other bears would fight the ohter for a small piece of food. The bears were sadly pacing back in forth, some of them wouldn’t even look up because they were constantly pacing in the small quarters. The bears were licking the concrete slabs for water! They kept on making a sad moaning sound when they were pacing. The bears weren’t the only ones pacing, ALL the animals were pacing in their small confinements. They had two adult tigers in what looked like a 10×20 cage with chain link fencing over the top. The tigers were pacing back and forth back and forth. The tiger kept trying to paw at the roof to get out. None of the animals were attentive like many animals we see at the zoo or in the wild…all they wanted to do was escape. Then there was the monkeys…and like the other animals they were pacing too…one of the male monkeys was constantly acting out, and one of the workers came out and said that the monkey doesn’t like men, and he acts out because of it, causing the male monkey to beat up the female monkey because he can’t get to the people. The female monkey was missing fingers, and she was hiding in the back of the cage behind another object. I looked into her eyes and felt her pain. It made my heart weep. I would have and still would do anything I can to put an end to this mistreatment. I would like to know of, if there are any, animal activist groups in the Cherokee area. I think that would be a good place to start. If anyone knows of a place I can relay my information on this issue please email me at wonderwoman_711_x@yahoo.com. Thanks! |
kayla