No Prize Attached: PETA Names Pigeon Forge ‘America’s Capital of Captive-Animal Misery’
For Immediate Release:
August 21, 2026
Contact:
Nicole Perreira 202-483-7382
Home to one of the country’s highest concentrations of captive-animal tourist traps—including old-style bear pits where wildlife languishes on cement—Pigeon Forge has earned a title no city wants in its brochure: “America’s Capital of Captive-Animal Misery.” In a letter sent today to Mayor Kevin McClure, PETA cites the city’s abundance of animal-exploiting businesses—including Gatorland, where a crocodilian is trapped in a tiny tank inside a souvenir shop—and urges Pigeon Forge to move past its animal-exploitation era to become a center for humane tourism.
Also earning Pigeon Forge its certificate of dishonor is Parrot Mountain, which uses parrots and other birds for photo ops and dangerous hands-on encounters—and supplies birds to local hotels, where they’re subjected to noisy crowds and other stressful conditions.
PETA is also placing a striking visual plea in the heart of town, urging tourists to steer clear of cruel bear pits, such as the one at a roadside zoo with a long history of federal animal welfare law violations, Three Bears General Store. This is where black bears River, Daisy, and Dolly are confined 24/7 while visitors gawk at them and toss them food scraps. Among the many faults found by the government inspectors was denying an elderly bear adequate veterinary care.
“No city should be known for keeping animals in pitiful conditions, as if we know nothing of their needs and interests, yet that’s Pigeon Forge’s reputation,” says PETA Foundation Managing Director of Captive Wildlife Debbie Metzler. “PETA is urging tourists to steer clear of these cruel tourist traps and calling on city leaders to help make Pigeon Forge a destination known for compassion, not cruelty.”
Bears love to climb and explore, crocodilians are doting parents, and parrots are highly social animals who, in nature, fly and forage with their flocks during the day and sleep together in the same tree at night. Animals used in tourist attractions are often confined to tiny, ramshackle enclosures that deny them virtually everything natural and meaningful to them. Deprived of space, stimulation, and control over their lives, many suffer severe psychological distress, and some even resort to hurting themselves by chewing on their own limbs or pulling out their fur or feathers.
PETA’s billboard is located near 2970 Parkway, in Pigeon Forge, less than half a mile from Three Bears General Store.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
