8 Reasons Why a Bass Pro Shops Hat Is a Huge Red Flag

Posted by Calvin on August 27, 2024

Have you noticed that some people like to wear Bass Pro Shops hats? These hats have been gaining some traction on TikTok—but once you know how awful the company is, you won’t be able to look at them the same again. Here are eight reasons why a Bass Pro Shops hat is a huge red flag: 🚩

1. Bass Pro Shops Displays Dead Animals

Seeing a deer or an elk from a distance in nature is a beautiful experience. Seeing their heads hung up on a wall? 😨 Not so much. Yet Bass Pro Shops displays them all over its stores. Why would we want to shop with a bunch of dead animals all around us?

2. Bass Pro Shops Promotes Hunting

The retailer is also a huge supporter of hunting. Its website offers tips on hunting all kinds of animals—from bears and wild hogs to ducks and geese—and it sells a ton of hunting gear. Hunting puts animals through long and painful deaths, tears fams apart, and leaves countless young ones orphaned. How could a company support it in good conscience?

3. Bass Pro Shops Promotes Fishing

Fishing is just as bad as hunting—hooks painfully rip through fish’s mouths and hoist them out of the water, where they suffocate in terror. 💔 Yet Bass Pro Shops (as you might have guessed from the name) makes a buck off selling gear for and giving tips on harming and killing fish.

4. Bass Pro Shops Stuffs Dead Animals

As if displaying dead animals in stores weren’t bad enough, Bass Pro Shops also stuffs dead animals so that customers can display them in their homes or businesses. This is just plain creepy. How are we supposed to relax with an animal’s carcass staring at us?

5. Bass Pro Shops Promotes Taking Fish From Nature

You already know that fishing causes pain and fear—but Bass Pro Shops adds to the animals’ misery with a bizarre offer. The retailer urges its customers to consider “donating” fish they catch to a Bass Pro Shops/Cabela’s aquarium—basically kidnapping fish from their homes and putting them in a tiny tank.

6. Bass Pro Shops Displays Live Animals in Stores

Life for fish in aquariums like those at Bass Pro Shops is straight-up depressing. Even the biggest, best-maintained aquarium can’t compare to nature. Fish crave stimulation from other fish and from their environment—think about how low their quality of life is when they’re trapped in a tank in the middle of a store. 😟

7. Bass Pro Shops Sponsors Professional Bull Riders Inc.

Professional Bull Riders Inc. organizes hundreds of bull-riding events every year—and Bass Pro Shops is an official sponsor. In these events, the animals may be electrically zapped, slammed to the ground, or provoked with spurs and countless bulls have died from heart attacks or broken backs or necks.

8. Bass Pro Shops Sells Shock Collars for Dogs

Not even dogs are safe from Bass Pro Shops’ cruelty. The retailer sells “electronic dog training” collars that give dogs an electronic shock to train them to help with hunting. Collars like these can result in injuries—the metal prongs are known to create puncture wounds that can quickly become infected—and anxiety, which can lead to changes in dogs’ heart and respiration rates as well as digestive disorders.

*****

If you’re looking for outdoor items, try Dick’s Sporting Goods, which removed hunting gear from its shelves in 2019, or REI. And if you’ve noticed that Bass Pro Shops is trying to market to folks in the South, just know that there are tons of ways you can embrace Southern culture without harming animals! See what being a vegan from the South is all about: