After a standoff lasting months and involving multiple organizations, Asiatic Black Bear, Dillan, finally arrived at his new lifelong home at The Wild Animal Sanctuary in Colorado — a move expected to add years to his life after experiencing decades of neglect.
Visibly suffering from rotting teeth, periodontal disease, morbid obesity, and arthritis from living on concrete his entire life, Dillan will now receive the expert health care and living conditions he has been lacking while spending his life encaged at a sportsmen’s club in Pennsylvania.
After witnessing first-hand the life-threatening poor health of the bear during a site visit in August 2019, officials from both PETA and The Wild Animal Sanctuary began a public campaign to encourage the club owners to provide the care Dillan so desperately needed or transfer him to an accredited sanctuary where he would be properly cared for.
The sportsmen’s club management resisted all attempts to improve Dillan’s life or relinquish him until recently when the USDA got more heavily involved and actor Alec Baldwin personally appealed to the governor of Pennsylvania on behalf of the bear.
After a cross-country trip of over 1,500 miles, Dillan is now enjoying his temporary quarters at the Sanctuary’s veterinary clinic where he will be medically evaluated and treated before being moved into a natural, large-acreage habitat. It is hoped that later this year he will be able to be moved to the Sanctuary’s Refuge property in southern Colorado — where he can live as close to natural as possible with other Asiatic Black Bears in a naturally forested environment.
Located near Keenesburg, Colorado, The Wild Animal Sanctuary is the largest nonprofit carnivore sanctuary in the world, with over 500 rescued animals including lions, tigers, bears, wolves, leopards and other large carnivores living in large-acreage natural habitats. Established in 1980, the Sanctuary operates two locations with more than 10,000 acres for abused, abandoned and confiscated carnivores and specializes in rehabilitating captive wildlife so they can be released into natural habitats where they can roam freely and live with others of their own kind. See more information and animal photos at www.wildanimalsanctuary.org and www.wildanimalrefuge.org.
Source: The Wild Animal Sanctuary
