On July 31st, it was reported that the facility was investigated by PETA earlier in 2023, in which the organization found, among other issues;
- Staff used explosive bottle rockets and firecrackers to separate American black bear cubs and grey wolf puppies from their mothers, as well as running chainsaws to drown out the sound of wailing cubs.
- A staff member telling the investigator to abuse the cubs (by kicking and squeezing their noses) if they start biting.
- Multiple staff members getting injured by the bears/pine marten/red foxes.
- Animals were denied adequate care if their health was declining (examples include a fox with widespread cancer being treated only for mites and a pine marten self-mutilating due to being trapped in a small exhibit).
- A Canada lynx escaped twice (first time no changes were made to the exhibit while the second time they moved the lynx to a smaller exhibit which caused them to stereotypically pace)*.
On March 4th, 2024, PETA posted an update on the situation that includes an email from OSHA to Bear Country USA which informs them that after they visited the facility on October 12th for an inspection, they issued a hazard alert for "hazards that cause or likely to cause death or serious physical harm in that employees were exposed to direct contact with black bears".
https://investigations.peta.org/bear-country-usa/
On April 11th, it was announced that the zoo transferred a (
0.1) American black bear to the Zollman Zoo in Minnesota.
Oxbow Park and Zollman Zoo
*
A USDA Inspection from August 10th, 2023 addressed the claims of the lynx escaping twice (once on May 5th and another time on June 13th), which states that the lynx was moved to a larger enclosure as their former exhibit is currently not in use until its closely re-evaluated. 
