Bob Barker talks to Cherokee chief about bear pits

ASHEVILLE (AP) - Former game show host and longtime animal rights activist Bob Barker asked the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians to stop using bear pits as tourist attractions and turn the animals over to a sanctuary in California.

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 in a public meeting moderated by Hicks and attended by some business owners.

"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."