A couple of weeks ago, the world was enraptured by the ‘Tiger King’, Joe Exotic. With a captive audience (quite literally at the moment), Netflix’s latest documentary had 34 million U.S viewers in the first 10 days of its release and triggered the most unbelievable collective response across social media.
People were fascinated by the array of bizarre characters who inhabit the exotic animal trade in America. From the ‘gay, gun-toting, polyamorous, redneck’, Joe Exotic, to Bhagavan ‘Doc’ Antle and his harem of young women who come to work in his sanctuary as teenagers and never leave, and ‘that bitch’ Carol Baskin, the butter-wouldn’t-melt, self-professed saviour of big cats who floats around her zoo, wide-eyed in flowing florals.
The show covers murder plots, legal battles, tiger maulings, accidental suicides, polyamorous marriages, reality show contracts, arson, presidential campaigns, and occasionally, tigers.
The characters and plot lines are so ridiculous, ‘Tiger King’ could easily have been a Chris Lilley style comedy series. The fact that they are all real makes it enthralling, shocking, and addictive – a circus side-show of astonishment where the animals are definitely not the main exhibit.
Why does no-one care about the tigers?
Anyone hoping that ‘Tiger King’ would expose the true horrors of the exotic animal trade in America will be very quickly disappointed.
Aside from Carol Baskin’s tireless efforts to shut down Joe Exotic’s GW Zoo, and promote the Big Cat Safety Act, there was actually very little mention of the cruelties of the exotic animal trade and what we can do to prevent it. And even Baskin’s efforts are presented like pure hypocrisy. She relies on a large team of ‘volunteers’ who are indoctrinated over a number of years until they reach a sort of ‘inner-circle’ team and only then will Carol make the effort to learn their names, at one point she films a large queue of people lining up to pay their entry fee and spend the day viewing her “sanctuary” of caged big cats. Carol may not be breeding tigers, but is what she’s doing really so much better than any of the other zoos featured?
At another point, we are shown a rare leopard sitting in a small cage in the back of a transit van in sweltering southern heat, as its new owner browses for reptiles to add to his collection. ‘Look what I just picked up’, he proudly professes and no-one questions the ethics of the situation. Might this not have been a good opportunity for the show’s producers to segway into an education piece on the dangers and cruelty of the exotic animal trade? To tell the audience about where this leopard might have come from, about how many of these animals are taken from places like ‘Australia, Africa, and the jungles of Brazil’, passing through many hands along the way and suffering ‘gruelling transport conditions’?
In this article, PETA talks of baby turtles being taped so they are trapped inside their shells and ‘shoved by the dozen into tube socks’ and ‘in one case, a man who was arrested at the Los Angeles airport had Asian leopard cats in a backpack, birds of paradise in additional luggage, and pygmy monkeys in his underwear.’ The mortality rate for animals smuggled across borders is around 80-90% they say.
Misguided or malicious?
In the final episode of Tiger King, we see a tearful Joe Exotic discussing the transport of his chimpanzees to a better facility as the GW Zoo came crashing down around him:
‘They sat in cages next to each other for over ten years. And we moved them to the Great Ape Centre in Florida. And in two days they were out in a big yard hugging on each other. Did I deprive them of that for ten years? Yep. I deprived them of being chimpanzees. Did I do it on purpose? No, I was wrapped up in having a zoo.’
While he seems genuinely remorseful here, and it does seem like his intentions for starting his zoo were good. It pays to remember that this is the same man who in a 2011 documentary, bragged to presenter, Louis Theroux, that he would rather euthanise all of his animals rather than hand them over to authorities if he ever ‘went broke’. Claims which have been partially substantiated by the discovery of 5 dead tigers buried on his property that were apparently ‘euthanised’ by Joe as they ‘were “dispensible” because they weren’t producing cubs’.
In the same documentary, Joe boldly claims that he is breeding his tigers ‘so that in 10-15 years when there are none left in the wild, we have some in captivity to replace the wild’. He goes on to explain to Theroux, while feeding a white tiger cub – the breeding of which is banned in accredited zoos due to the fact that ‘breeding for white tigers has no conservation value’ – ‘Ok, so, we’re raising him to respect me, and I respect him enough that we both can stand there and teach you about his native land’. When Theroux points out that his native land is America, he responds:
‘His great-great-great-grandfather’s land is Siberia. Russia. So, we’re going to grow up together and teach him how to respect Russia, even though he’s never been there.’
It is pretty clear that Joe Exotic is completely clueless about conservation efforts and animal welfare in general. Throughout, ‘Tiger King’ he declares on numerous occasions that he wants ‘to keep those animal rights folks out of Oklahoma’ and never seems to question if the way he is caring for his animals may be wrong – even when feeding them (and his human guests) leftover meat from Walmart.
Not the only victims
While the issues of the big cat trade in America are barely acknowledged – the welfare of the other exotic animals at the zoo is not even mentioned in Tiger King. At one point we very briefly learn that seven crocodiles have been ‘[boiled] alive in a towering inferno of nothing but flames and fire’ after an arson attack on Joe’s recording studio where the animals were also housed. The animals are just an added detail to the real tragedy they focus on; the loss of the recordings for Joe’s reality show.
While we learn that Joe ‘rescues’ and breeds big cats, the origin of his other animals is never discussed. Are they bought, bred, traded, rescued? We don’t know. And while the issue of trading big cats in America is huge and well deserving of air time, it is only one of the many cruelties occurring in the exotic animal industry. Take Joe’s crocodiles, for example, according to the National Geographic:
‘Few protections exist for reptiles: Only about 8 percent of the roughly 10,000 species are included in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, the international treaty that regulates the commercial trade of wildlife across national borders.’
Joe may be the ‘tiger king’ but his zoo housed chimpanzees, crocodiles, lions, ligers, birds, and other creatures, all with their own specific needs and requirements. The welfare of these animals is not even touched upon.
Not the only villain
Just as tigers are not the only victims in all this, Joe Exotic is far from the only villain. Bhagavan ‘Doc’ Antle, founder of the Myrtle Beach Safari in South Carolina has over 35 USDA violations against his name for mistreating animals and has been accused of euthanising cubs once they too old to be handled for lucrative photo ops, a claim he vehemently denies
Jeff Lowe is another dubious character, brought in to ‘save’ the GW Zoo, at the end of the series he was in the process of building a new facility near the Texas border. He has been accused of mishandling tiger cubs, stuffing them into suitcases to smuggle them into Las Vegas hotel rooms, and using them as props to attract women.
In a shocking turn of events, Joe Exotic is now collaborating with ‘those animal rights folks’ from behind bars, providing PETA with information about wildlife trafficking in the US. In his own words: ‘Brittany (PETA agent) was shocked, because, fuck, I gave her information on everybody… I said, I’ll testify against all 30 of them.’
The reason for Joe’s turn around may be revenge but if it does anything to tighten restrictions on animal trafficking and hold its key players accountable, then he will have done more good for animal rights than he ever would have imagined.
What now?
What Tiger King does not make explicit enough, is that beyond all the ‘bad guys’ of the exotic animal industry, its customers are also to blame. Breeding tigers in captivity is wrong, posing for pictures and treating these cubs like playthings is wrong, and paying for the pleasure is simply criminal.
Any zoo that breeds animals or provides opportunities for interaction with animals is not a reputable establishment and you should not spend your money there. Read this quick guide from PETA if you need more info on how to tell if a zoo or sanctuary is ethical.
‘Blackfish’ put accountability on people and caused huge boycotts of Sea World, change in legislation regarding the breeding of orcas in captivity, and the cancellation of orca shows. Tiger King may not have been so vicious, impactful, or even critical of private zoo owners as animal lovers would have hoped, but while we are all talking about it, let this be the final message we take from it.
Do not support any establishment which breeds animals, takes animals on roadside tours, or charges for photo ops. Hold them, and yourselves, to a higher standard, and do not be part of the problem.
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One thought on “Tiger King: Why Does No-one Care About the Tigers?”
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Excellent! Couldn’t agree with you more. I haven’t watched ‘Tiger King’ and have no intention of doing so. But I’ve heard a bit about it from my family and others who have watched it. Your last paragraph says it all!