Lawsuit Filed Against USDA for Issuing Animal Welfare Act License to Serial Violator Yellowstone Bear World

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WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, the Animal Legal Defense Fund filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and its Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service(APHIS) for issuing an exhibitor's license under the Animal Welfare Act(AWA) to Yellowstone Bear World, an Idaho drive-thru facility with decades of known violations of state and federal law.

The complaintasserts that for 25 years, Yellowstone Bear World has violated the federal AWA by exploiting black bear cubs, allowing members of the public to bottle-feed and handle the months-old baby bears by prematurely tearing them away from their mothers. Forcing vulnerable cubs into stressful interactions with humans causes the bears severe behavioral distress and harm. Additionally, tearing apart cubs from their mothers threatens the cubs' development and traumatizes both the mother bears and their cubs. These inhumane and cruel practices violate the USDA's regulations under the AWA that require exhibitors to handle every animal "in a manner that does not cause trauma, … behavioral stress, physical harm, or unnecessary discomfort," and mandate that "[a]nimals shall be exhibited only for periods of time and under conditions consistent with their good health and well-being." Yellowstone Bear World also regularly violates USDA regulations that prohibit exhibitors from allowing the public to have contact with dangerous animals, including bears, who are over 12 weeks old. The facility has been cited for these practices, including by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration(OSHA), which issued "serious" violations to Yellowstone Bear World in February 2023 pertaining to its handling of bears. Yet the facility continues to defy the law.

For much of the past 25 years, Yellowstone Bear World has also operated in violation of state law. Until recently, Idaho law expressly outlawed public feeding of wildlife, which would include bottle-feeding of bears. This practice led the Idaho Department of Fish and Game to issue a notice of violation to the facility for its bottle-feeding program, among other documented violations of state wildlife law.

"For decades, Yellowstone Bear World has put the well-being of animals second to profits while breaking laws that should have precluded the USDA from ever issuing the park an exhibitor license in the first place," says Animal Legal Defense Fund Senior Staff Attorney Caitlin Foley. "It's critical that the laws in place are enforced, and comprehensive inspections are conducted, so bear cubs held at the park are not subjected to repeated traumas that put their lives and the safety of the public at risk."

Under the AWA, an exhibitor may obtain a license only upon "demonstrat[ing] that his facilities comply with the standards promulgated by" the USDA. Yet Yellowstone Bear World has gotten away with these egregious practices for more than two decades because, until recently, the USDA renewed exhibitor licenses annually as a matter of course without conducting any renewal inspections to determine whether exhibitors met that burden. After the Animal Legal Defense Fund challenged the USDA's license renewal process - arguing that the agency was rubber-stamping license renewals for facilities blatantly violating the Animal Welfare Act - the USDA finally adopted a new licensing regime. The new process became effective on November 9, 2020, with a phased-in implementation that requires the USDA to inspect a facility every three years before approving an exhibitor's license, with the facility affirmatively "demonstrat[ing] compliance" with the AWA during each inspection.

Despite this new licensing regime, the USDA's inspections are still woefully inadequate. For example, the USDA inspected Yellowstone Bear World on February 9, 2023, even though the facility was closed to the public and is open only from May to October each year. As a result, the inspector was unable to observe the bottle-feeding and maternal-deprivation practices that unambiguously violate AWA regulations, as well as Idaho law in effect at the time. Either should have precluded approval of Yellowstone Bear World's license. The USDA also failed to incorporate these practices into its licensure of the facility, even though Yellowstone Bear World's website heavily promotes its bottle-feeding experience, and openly describes how it prematurely separates cubs from their mothers when they are less than two months old, while admitting that, in the wild, bear cubs remain with their mothers for up to two years.

Just two days before the USDA inspection, OSHA had issued "serious" violations to Yellowstone Bear World pertaining to its handling of bears. Seven months before that, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game had issued violations because the facility allowed public feeding of bears in express violation of Idaho law. Even a cursory review of the facility's website also reveals that Yellowstone Bear World's bottle-feeding experience uses bears often far older than the 12 weeks allowed by the USDA regulations. Yet the USDA's February 2023 licensing inspection of Yellowstone Bear World states only that it found "no noncompliant items," and didn't impede the park from getting approved.

The Animal Legal Defense Fund is further represented in this case by Gibson Dunn.

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