Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness is a 2020 American true-crime documentary miniseries that features the life of zookeeper Joe Exotic, as well as many other exotic animal facility owners that either breed, sell, exhibit or care for exotic animals. It was released by Netflix on March 20, 2020. The series focuses on a small but deeply interconnected society of big cat exploiters, such as Joe Exotic, who is accused of abusing and exploiting wild animals, as well as attempting to kill one of the other facility operators.
In December of 2017, our Sanctuary was called in to rescue 39 Tigers and 3 Bears from Joe Exotic's roadside zoo. Some of the 42 animals were part of an ongoing court case (read article below), while others were surrendered by Joe after his husband had killed himself in a freak accident.
Once Joe Exotic was convicted of numerous crimes and sent to federal prison to serve 22 years, Jeff and Lauren Lowe continued to run the GW Zoo and breed more Tigers. However, even though Joe Exotic was no longer present, the care and conditions for the animals at the GW Zoo declined rapidly under the Lowe's management. Three African Lion cubs that belonged to Tim Stark were discovered in terrible condition during a USDA inspection of the GW Zoo, with one of the little Lions close to death.
The USDA Inspector stopped the inspection process and insisted the Lowes take the poor Lioness to a Veterinarian for immediate treatment. Thankfully, PETA was able to get a protective court order that granted the removal of all 3 Lions, and our Sanctuary made a special trip to Wynnewood, Oklahoma to rescue them.
Eventually, Jeff and Lauren lost their USDA license, as well as lost the property through another court case - so they had to move the animals to a new location. Yet, lacking the proper knowledge and equipment for such a move, the Lowes ended up leaving 11 Wolves, 3 Tigers and 2 Bears behind when they reached the end of their three months allotted time to exit the zoo - so all 16 animals needed to be rescued and brought to our Refuge in southern Colorado. The video below shows our rescue team preparing the wolves to be transported, and also demonstrates the condition of the zoo on the final day of animals being present.
Other characters like Tim Stark also ran into legal trouble after the show aired, with both the state of Indiana and PETA suing Tim Stark to get possession of his animals. As a result, our Sanctuary was called in to rescue another 14 Lions, Tigers, Ligers, Liligers and Tiligers, as well as 2 Bears from Stark's facility in Indiana.
In January of 2021, we were called in again by two separate federal agencies to go to Jeff and Lauren Lowe's new facility in Thackerville, OK and rescue another 14 Tigers. The Tigers are part of an ongoing court case brought on by the USDA and Department of Justice.
On May 6th, 2021, The Department of Justice and the USDA again asked us to help rescue another 6 animals that were in dire need of help, which we gave 1 Liger a home, while 5 other big cats went to other sanctuaries.
On May 17th and 18th, 2021, our Sanctuary participated in a major raid on the Lowe's Tiger King Park with the goal of removing all of the endangered big cats, since conditions at the facility had continued to decline. We were charged with removing all 68 Lions, Tigers and Ligers, and provided a home to another 35 Lions, Tigers and Liligers.
On August 18th, 2021 under the guidance of the USDA, we returned to the Tiger King Park to help remove all of the remaining animals that were left behind during the big cat removal process. There were more than 60 animals remaining at the Park, which included everything from a large Camel, down to the tiniest Kinkajou. Like the previous raids, our organization managed nearly all of the removal and loading for numerous licensed facilities that were coming to take animals. Our Sanctuary was asked to rescue 14 animals including 1 Kinkajou, 3 Bobcats, 1 Lynx, 5 Caracals, 1 Coyote and 3 Wolves.
Another prime character in the series was a man named Doc Antle. He too has now been indicted by a government agency and is facing numerous charges including one felony count of wildlife trafficking, one felony count of conspiracy to wildlife traffic, and four misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to violate the Endangered Species Act. The day may come when many of his animals will need to be rescued as well.
To date, nearly 150 animals have been rescued from the so-called stars of the Netflix TIGER KING series. Thankfully, the 141 Lions, Tigers, & Bears that have been rescued, now live and roam freely inside beautiful large acreage habitats at one of our three accredited sanctuaries. With your help, we can stand ready to help even more of the unfortunate animals that continue to suffer and need our help.
We are extremely grateful for your support and hope you are as glad as we are to see numerous government and animal welfare agencies responding to the TIGER KING show and its monumental exposure. Working in a highly cooperative manner, we are all responding as quickly as possible to intervene on the animals' behalf!
Would you like to show your support and let the world know that 141 animals have been rescued so far? If so, please make a donation today!
Click Here to read and/or download the insane list of abuse carried out by the Lowes
**UPDATE 12/24/2021
Thankfully, Jeff & Lauren Lowe were pursued by the US Department of Justice and were given a final decree by the Federal Court that prevents them from ever having or displaying animals again! See the Court Decree Below:
Articles Pertaining to TIGER KING Facility Rescues
Colorado Sanctuary Home to 39 Tigers Once Owned By Tiger King's Joe Exotic: They're 'Happier'
The Wild Animal Sanctuary says the 39 tigers formerly owned by Joe Exotic came to the sanctuary malnourished, in distress and with extensive dental issues
By Kelli Bender | April 03, 2020 07:40 PM
While watching Netflix’s wildly-successful docu-series Tiger King, many may wonder, “What happened to all of Joe Exotic’s animals?”
The first season of the show concludes with the G.W. Zoo’s former owner, Joseph Maldonado-Passage, who goes by the name Joe Exotic, in jail for a murder-for-hire plot and the zoo under the new ownership of Jeff Lowe, but little is said of the current state of the G.W. Zoo’s tigers.
Kent Drotar, the public relations director of the Wild Animal Sanctuary, has some answers. Thirty-nine of the tigers and three black bears formerly under Joe Exotic’s care are now living in the expansive habitats of Keenesburg, Colorado sanctuary.
The Wild Animal Sanctuary as a non-profit consists of two properties: The Wild Animal Sanctuary itself — the 40-year-old, 789-acre home for wild animals rescued from neglectful and often illegal situations — and the Wild Animal Refuge, a close to 10,000-acre property in a remote part of southeastern Colorado acquired two years ago to provide even more space for the sanctuary’s rescues. The Wild Animal Sanctuary and the Wild Animal Refuge do not breed their animals and do not allow guests or keepers to have hands-on contact with the animals.
Between the two locations, the Wild Animal Sanctuary is currently caring for around 550 animals.
“We are almost the complete antithesis to what those other places do,” Drotar told PEOPLE, referring to the private zoos depicted in Tiger King. “We rescue and give permanent homes to animals that come from situations like that.”
According to Drotar, about 80% of the sanctuary’s residents, among them lions, jaguars, tigers, wolves, bears, ostriches and more, arrive there after being confiscated by a law enforcement agencies. Often this is by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) or U.S. Fish and Wildlife, which seize abused and/or illegally-owned wild animals and then place those animals in appropriate sanctuaries once the legal proceedings connected to the animal’s seizure are complete.
The other 20% are animals that are willfully surrendered by owners to the Wild Animal Sanctuary. Sometimes, owners moving to Colorado with exotic pets aren’t aware of the state’s strict exotic pet ownership laws, which are lax in many other states, and decide to surrender their pet once they realize it is illegal now. Other exotic pet owners realize they’ve made a mistake.
“Some people bought a lion cub out in Ohio at wildlife auction and they got him as a small cub for $425,” Drotar recalled about a lion resident. “About three years later, we got a call from them and they admitted that they made a mistake, and they complained that this lion had outgrown everything they had put him in, and asked if we could come and get him. We went and got this male lion from a tool shed.”
Joe Exotic’s 39 tigers and three bears came into the Wild Animal Sanctuary’s care through a mix of surrender and the threat of legal action said Drotar.
The tigers’ journey to the sanctuary started in 2016 in Dade City, Florida, at Dade City’s Wild Things Zoo, a private zoo that, like Joe Exotic’s former zoo, allowed guests to pay extra money to handle tiger cubs. The zoo also allowed guests to pay for the chance to swim with tiger cubs. People for the Ethical Treatment Animals (PETA) filed a lawsuit on behalf of the tigers against the Florida zoo on the grounds that the zoo was mistreating endangered animals. As part of the legal proceedings that stemmed from this lawsuit, PETA’s legal team was granted access to the zoo to inspect the property.
“A couple of days prior to that Joe Exotic drove from Oklahoma down to Dade City, Florida, and removed 19 tigers at the behest of the owners of Dade City’s Wild Things,” Drotar said, adding he believes Joe Exotic agreed to move the tigers to his zoo in an effort to thwart law enforcement and because “Joe Exotic was notorious for breeding cubs and selling them to other organizations that used cubs, so there’s a good chance those 19 tigers originated at Joe’s zoo.”
Joe Exotic was deposed and a judge threatened to charge him with contempt of court for taking that big cats across state lines, according to Drotar. To avoid legal trouble, Joe Exotic agreed to give up the 19 tigers to the Wild Animal Sanctuary and chose to surrender 20 tigers and three black bears of his own a short time later. Drotar said that Joe Exotic’s decision to surrender the other animals came shortly after his husband Travis Maldonado died.
“He was kind of having a change of heart and was saying he wanted to get out of the business completely,” he added.
The 42 total animals have been at the Wild Animal Sanctuary for a little over two years and have noticeably changed during their time at the sanctuary.
According to Drotar, the tigers came in malnourished and weak, with lackluster coats and extensive dental issues. Additionally, many of the big cats were poorly declawed and had mobility issues as a result. The public relations director also said the animals appeared to have broken spirits as well.
“It’s kind of like the tigers were thinking, ‘Wow, my life is not worth living,'” he said.
Luckily, that anguish ended once the animals settled into their new home.
“The animals are just happier. They are no longer just pacing,” Drotar said of how the tigers have changed since arriving at the sanctuary. “It was almost an immediate change with their demeanor. They see other tigers. They see other animals. They see a horizon. They just have more of a purpose for living.”
Two years after arriving at the sanctuary, the tigers now have muscle mass and thick, luxurious coats with an impressive depth of color, and they have space. Joe Exotic, according to Drotar, kept many of his tigers in 12 ft. x 12 ft. cages at his 16-acre G. W. Zoo. Now, with far more space to roam and play at the Wild Animal Sanctuary, each tiger habitat, which contains about four-five tigers, averages 16 acres.
“There is no comparison on where these animals came from and where they are now,” he added.