The “Tiger Kings” of Oregon aren’t all bad
By Advay Koranne ‘20 and Graham O’Neill ‘20
Oregon Tiger King. Graphic courtesy of Lauren Mei Calora ‘20.
Recently, the TV show “Tiger King” has spread like wildfire from people like Kim Kardashian and Wiz Khalifa tweeting about it to even President Donald Trump saying he would look into pardoning the protagonist of the TV show.
Oregon has its fair share of big cat enclosures just as any other state does. The issue of animal treatment stretches far beyond Joe Exotic, and many of these places exist right in our backyard.
The show focuses on a handful of parks that own tigers, lions, ligers, and other exotic animals: the G.W. Zoo in Oklahoma, which was owned by Joe Exotic, Doc Antle’s Myrtle Beach Safari in South Carolina, and Carole Baskin’s Big Cat Rescue in Florida.
There are more captive tigers in the United States than in the wild –– and that means that even in the Pacific Northwest, tigers and other such exotic animals exist in captivity. Zoos, sanctuaries, and safari parks throughout Oregon house tigers and lions alike. Some of these operate much like the G.W. Zoo, which possess exotic animals such as tigers and lions in order to make a profit.
What is “Tiger King”?
The show launched on March 20, 2020, by filmmakers Eric Goode and Rebecca Chailkin. Eric Goode had been involved in previous wildlife conservation efforts. He created a conservation center in Ojai, California, that was a place for endangered turtles. He has also published many papers and documentaries. Rebecca Chaiklin, the other director, also has experience with filming documentaries such as “Lockdown, USA and Another World.”
In an interview with the New York Times, Goode said, “I originally set out to do a project that was a combination of “Best in Show,” “Grizzly Man” and “Blackfish.” The core reason for doing this was, how do you create awareness about the suffering and exploitation of exotic animals but in a way where you can engage an audience? It was equally important for me to dig into the pathology of these characters as it was to expose the horrible practices of exploiting these animals.”
But the “Tiger King” show focused more on the figures behind these exotic animal cults rather than the abuse happening to the animals themselves. In fact, Chaiklin recalled that Goode said, “Imagine ‘Breaking Bad,’ but instead of dealing meth, they’re dealing exotic animals.”
Many individuals have had problems with the way that “Tiger King” extols certain characters. As Vox news puts it, “It masks the way the tigers themselves are being treated. It turns Joe Exotic’s moral repulsiveness into a series of weird character quirks.”
There has been a strong backlash from animal rights activists as well to shut down places that mistreat animals such as Joe Exotic’s and Doc Antle’s. However, many of these roadside zoos think that they are nobly educating the public. They say that if there is a shortage of tigers and lions in the world, allowing them to breed more tigers will help solve the problem. But many of these tigers are not purebreds and have not been trained on how to live in the wild and therefore can never be released.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Brittany Peet, a lawyer for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) gave one perspective on the harm of the popular Netflix show.
"It has been disheartening to see people embracing the misogynistic aspects of ‘Tiger King,’" said Peet. "Looking past the fact that Joe racked up more than 200 violations of the Animal Welfare Act while he was operating, he admitted shooting five tigers in the head just to make room for the tigers he was being paid to board...Some people are coming away from the experience thinking Joe is some kind of hero, and Carole is the villain. That's been disheartening,"
There are locations in Oregon that operate in a similar fashion as the G.W. Zoo. Katie Shepard wrote an article about a farm in Oregon that was housing big cats in 2017 in the Willamette Week and exposed some of the possible problems associated with the location.
The two owners were Cheryl Jones and Steve Higgs. The couple owned an animal sanctuary 501c3 (making it exempt from certain taxes) called A Walk On The Wild Side, which was dedicated to “helping all species of wild animals who, for various reasons, find themselves without a place to live out their lives.”
This location can be compared to that of the G.W. Zoo in many ways: you could get your photo taken with baby tigers, the tigers were taken to different fairs, and you could even pay for cubs to come to children's birthday parties. There were over two million people a year that used to visit the park.
There were many complaints filed by individuals who thought that the place might have issues in the way that it was treating its animals. In fact, numerous times, the U.S. Department of Agriculture came to check the farm out, but none of their visits resulted in large repercussions.
However, the roaring tigers soon led to their hidden secret becoming uncovered. A code enforcer in Washington County sent a cease and desist letter stating that the place could not house wild animals anymore.
"Sometimes we feel like, 'God, we're the only ones out there trying to do anything and help with this,'" Higgs says. "We're working hard to make sure that our children's children's children are going to be able to see these cats."
Jones. Quote courtesy of Willamette Week
The location has even received strong backlash from Carole Baskin. Baskin, the founder of 911 Animal Abuse and prominent figure in “Tiger King”, wrote an extensive article in 2018, outlining the problems of A Walk on the Wild Side. Some of the issues she outlined were the following: “These include exploiting tiger cubs for $30 photo-ops; breeding and buying animals for display at fairs; threatening and insulting those who criticize them; renting out animals for parties and commercials; and advocating for the “right” of circuses, roadside zoos, and private owners to own, breed, and exploit endangered species.”
She even talked about how employees at the zoo have bragged about how the locations inhumane practices such as cub petting have made them “rich.”
But this is not the only location that could be possessing such exotic animals in Oregon for the purposes of entertainment.
The Oregon Zoo might seem to be one that comes to most people's minds, but they only own a fraction of Oregon’s total tigers. Throughout Oregon, you can go to different safaris and parks and see these endangered animals. For example, the Wildlife Safari located in Douglas County, Oregon, has an African lion, a cheetah, and a Sumatran tiger. It is also America's most successful cheetah-breeding program. But animal rights advocates have many problems with such places.
According to the Animal Legal Defense Fund, there are numerous issues with roadside zoos such as the fact that animals frequently live in small dirty cages, are fed inadequate food, and have unattended medical needs.
PETA says that even drive-through safaris which may seem better still can ship animals out when they become unwanted after they grow up.
But sanctuaries, on the other hand, unlike zoos or a safari park, do not “breed, buy, or sell animals,” making them far better for housing exotic animals from the perspective of animal rights’ activists.
Wildcat Ridge Sanctuary
The Wildcat Ridge Sanctuary is a nonprofit organization located in Marion County, Oregon. The sanctuary is not open to the public –– unlike many other places in Oregon that house such exotic animals. They have more than 80 animals, which includes 50 wildcats. The location takes in animals from traumatic backgrounds and tries to rehabilitate them. Their mission is to “provide a safe, natural lifetime home for captive-born wildcats in need.”
It is not unique that Ford claims a certain sincerity and genuine passion for saving animals, and that it is the sole purpose of their sanctuary. What is unique about Wildcat Ridge is that they are one of the few who are actually making a difference in providing a better life for animals born into the places like G.W. Zoo.
We interviewed Ian Ford, the Executive Assistant at the sanctuary, over the phone.
Can you tell us something about yourself and how you ended up at the Wildcat Ridge Sanctuary?
My mom saw an ad for a bobcat kitten in the paper back in 1996.
Like most people, she thought, “Wow, that's pretty neat,” and we ended up getting Bobo. We realized that everything that the breeder said was not accurate. He marked everywhere he needed. You know, he actually needed an all-meat diet. He did not use the cat box. He was very possessive. He was a wild animal.
And at that point, she started looking for work. She wondered, ‘How can we help in this problem?’ Because obviously there's a lot of people that are going to end up getting these animals and then most likely having them put down because they can't take care of them. Officially, we became a sanctuary in 2001.
Did you have any zoological training or qualifications?
No, not at all. Again, [we started this work] literally just based on a need. We had this animal in the house and through no fault of his own, he was kind of stuck in this scenario where he was going to live out his life in a very small enclosure
Everything we've done, we've learned as we've gone. There are other accredited sanctuaries that we do work with that we've been fortunate enough to be able to learn from here and there along the way. A lot of them, unfortunately, have been trial and error because there really wasn't a set of guidelines for having an animal sanctuary.
Where do the majority of your cats come from?
All of our animals are captive-born, meaning that they were basically bred for entertainment purposes, for people to have as pets. None of the animals we have were in the wild, and they can't be returned to the wild.
We had some cats originally we got from fur farms in Canada. We've had a number that came from “roadside zoos” that are being shut down, and the animals really were going to be destroyed.
There's been a big uproar with the show “Tiger King.” Are you familiar with that TV show?
Yes. Two of our cats originally came from Joe.
Would you mind telling us how those cats came about? Are there similar places to Joe Exotic’s, and what are your opinions on such places?
Pretty much everybody has a connection to Joe or Doc Antle’s place or Tim Stark's. When Joe is done with a cat--when it can't be used as a photo-prop anymore and it can't be used as a breeder--either he kills it, or he essentially says, “Hey, I'm getting rid of this cat.”
Sometimes the sanctuaries will come in and take an animal. We ended up getting [Joe Exotic’s tigers] through another organization through Serenity Springs Facility in Colorado that was being shut down as well. They were a roadside zoo. They had a number of animals that needed to be placed and two of their tigers that we ended up taking had originally come from Joe Exotic.
We have two lions that originally came from Joe Exotic’s facillity as well. Again, in a similar situation, they were no use to him anymore and rather than being put down, they ended up being transferred to another facility. A lot of times the way that that happens is that a facility, since it's also a roadside zoo, purchased the animal from Joe. If the [big cats] don't make him money, he's not going to just give them away. You know, them going to a better home doesn't mean anything to people like him. So when that facility got shut down again, there are only so many in the United States that have the capability to take in a larger cat like that. We happen to have the space, so we're able to step in. We all kind of work together as a group to be able to take in animals that otherwise would just have to be put down.
Are you familiar with Carol Baskin?
Her mission is exactly what our mission is. Our purpose is just to make sure that these animals, through no fault of their own, were born into a situation where they can live out their lives in the most natural way possible.
Our facility is a little bit different than a cat rescue in that we are closed to the public. We've never been open to the public. Our cats are extremely relaxed.
They are open to the public, so people can pay to come in to see the animals. There is no individual interaction with them: you're not handling a cub, you're not paying for photo ops, nothing like that. But again, we take it the extra step, and we're just not open to the public.
Photo courtesy of Wildcat Ridge Sanctuary.
What do you think that the solution is to make sure that these private zoos get closed or places that are exploiting these exotic animals? What do you think the solution is to make sure that they are safe?
Well, the Big Safety Act is definitely critically important. The idea being that no one should have private ownership of animals like this –– period. I don't believe that there is a God-given right that says, “I, as a human, have dominion over an animal,” or anything ridiculous like that. I'm trying to raise awareness for people.
There's a lot of folks that even after the documentary that you mentioned are holding Joe Exotic up as some type of folk hero. And he's, you know, kind of kooky and yeah, he says what he means.
But the reality is that he murdered his animals. He took babies away from mothers that were actively giving birth. He's an absolutely terrible person. For us, the educational aspect is one of the biggest parts of trying to explain why cub-petting is wrong and why posing for an animal selfie is wrong. There're a lot of people that sort of get sucked into the shiny veneer of what's being presented at places like Doc Antle’s and even Joe's. This idea of conservation as “We want there to be tigers as well.”
None of these tigers are tigers that would count towards conservation in that they're all sort of a mutt tiger. They're just bred as a prop. So this idea that, “We thought we were going to make more Bengal tigers” [is incorrect] because you're not actually making Bengal tigers. You're not supposed to be breeding them.
Despite your noble cause in this issue, have you received any backlash from people who are maybe uninformed of what your mission is?
Since the documentary has come out, we've spent a hefty portion of our time explaining how we're not like every facility that they showed in that documentary other than Big Cat Rescue. [We’ve been] defending Big Cat Rescue and explaining why the way that this is presented is kind of ridiculous.
Do you like the show? Does it serve an important purpose in the animal rights movement?
My personal position on the whole thing, was that the director had an opportunity to really shine a light on a huge problem in the United States, and he instead chose to go the Jerry Springer-route where, “Hey, everybody, let's make fun of these idiots.” It's a disservice to the animals and it’s a disservice to the people that spend all their time trying to help these animals. I don't know how many conversations I found myself in where I'm sort of explaining that, “No, we don't just feed them cow carcasses that people give us. In fact, we don't do that at all.”
762 Likes, 11 Comments - WildCat Ridge Sanctuary (@wildcatridgesanctuary) on Instagram: "What an amazing feeling to know that the wildcats have no idea about the crazy times we are living..."
Are there a lot of Oregonians or private individuals in Oregon that own tigers, even though that may be opposed to the law?
I'm sure there are. The reality is that we don't really have clear statistics on that because not many people will volunteer that “Oh, yes, I have a tiger in my home.” So unfortunately, we'll get a call from somebody saying, “Hey, I have a friend of mine that’s got a cat that looks like it's a Bengal cat, and they need to place it.”
We just got a little tiny cat at about four and a half pounds. He had his lower fangs removed, so he can't really eat very well. He had all four of his paws declawed, and there are signs that his previous owners had an earring in him because they thought that’d be neat.
And so again, here's this little dude here that is real hissy. He's very afraid of us. He's in the office with us in an enclosure that we have in here for rehab, and it's just the saddest thing because he should have peace. He should have claws, he should be able to eat. But he can't really do any of this stuff because somebody thought it would be neat to do this to their toy.
For more information see the following links:
Wild Cat Ridge Sanctuary
PETA: Roadside Zoos and Other Captive-Animal Displays
“A Defiant Couple Is Caging Big Cats in the Portland Suburbs. Should Anybody Stop Them?” - Willamette Week