Tiger King 1x1

1. Where do you want to start?

2. I guess at the beginning somewhere.

3. It was a crazy beginning.

4. Mmm.

5. - Crazy. - What was the beginning?

6. Animal people are nuts, man.

7. And I might be one of them people.

8. I don't know,

9. but they're all half-out there, man. They're crazy.

10. You know, the monkey people are a little bit different.

11. Okay, good boy! Good boy!

12. You know, they're kinda strange,

13. but the big cat people are back-stabbing...

14. pieces of shit.

15. A decades-long feud comes to a bizarre end—

16. Tiger King stands accused of trying to have a woman killed.

17. You know, there's not every day that a zookeeper went to prison

18. for murder-for-hire.

19. So, I'm sure—

20. I'm sure y'all got a story to tell.

21. This is a prepaid call from...

22. Joe Exotic.

23. an inmate at the Grady County Jail.

24. Do you know what they threatened me with?

25. Seventy-nine years.

26. I went to work every day prepared to die in a tiger cage.

27. - Dying doesn't scare me.

28. At all.

29. Here is a fact that may make you stop for a second.

30. There are more captive tigers in the US today

31. than there are in the wild throughout the world.

32. - Come here, you sexy beast!

33. Hi, little man.

34. Look at that big smile. There you go. Show them claws.

35. You would not believe how many sheriffs told me,

36. "Oh yeah, just down the street,

37. there's a guy that has a lion,"

38. or, "A guy down there that has a tiger."

39. They just feel very strongly that these are mine

40. and nobody's gonna take 'em from me.

41. - I'll tell you, it's real simple.

42. Don't own big, dangerous, exotic animals 'cause it's a time bomb.

43. Everybody has a story.

44. Everybody that's owned one, it's always been a bad, bad ending.

45. I've been doing this 20 years. Never even been bit.

46. It's okay.

47. Our mission is to ban the private possession

48. of these magnificent animals.

49. She wanted to shut down the zoo.

50. And he wanted her gone.

51. The so-called Tiger King—

52. He is on trial, accused in a murder-for-hire plot.

53. Joe Exotic is accused of paying a person

54. to murder Carole Baskin.

55. Long before he was ever indicted in these charges,

56. Joe Exotic was someone that makes good TV, makes good news.

57. Even if it's a train wreck, you can't help but look.

58. He's a completely insane, gay, gun-toting, drug-addict fanatic.

59. He wasn't real.

60. He was like a mythical character,

61. living out in the middle of Bumfuck, Oklahoma.

62. The well-known zoo owner was taken into custody.

63. He could be looking at nearly 80 years in prison.

64. When I leave this park, I wear a bulletproof vest.

65. That is how bad this has gotten.

66. There are so many strange twists in that story.

67. You would have to write books,

68. volumes of the stuff that went wrong there.

69. Let me show and tell the whole thing.

70. Because then you'll get it.

71. Then you'll say, "Jesus fucking Christ! Why are you in jail?"

72. Okay, this is good. All right.

73. And how old is she?

74. She's 23 years old.

75. When I started this project,

76. I had no idea it would consume five years of my life

77. It all began when I was investigating

78. a notorious reptile dealer in South Florida.

79. See how the snake stresses? That's when the venom shoots out.

80. That's enough to kill everybody in this room three, four times over.

81. A guy showed up one day wanting to buy a venomous snake.

82. We haven't even offered them for sale yet. These are those real young ones, you know.

83. When he was leaving, he said,

84. "Check out what I just bought."

85. In the back of this guy's van was a snow leopard.

86. Oh, shit!

87. It was 100 degrees outside.

88. Do they need to be refrigerated? You know, 'cause they—

89. Not if they're acclimated in Florida,

90. if they're born and raised here.

91. Are these as rare as the clouded leopard?

92. These are rarer than the clouded leopard.

93. It just blew my mind.

94. What is a snow leopard doing in the back of this guy's hot van?

95. That set me on this journey to really understand what is going on

96. with people keeping big cats in this country.

97. Oh, little girl.

98. - Maybe take it off? - Oh, you don't want me to take it off.

99. I like it off.

100. Your whole audience will say, "Oh my god, that guy has a mullet!"

101. No, I like it. I like it!

102. Jamotti! Jamotti, my sexy tiger!

103. You raised these from babies?

104. These were grown up in my house, yup.

105. We've got, like, eight of 'em in there now.

106. People, every day, they're like...

107. "You must have the most incredible life, to live with 187 big cats."

108. I started building this in 1999.

109. Believe it or not, this was a completely empty field.

110. In over 16 years, it's grown into this.

111. My name is Joe Exotic

112. and this is Thunder and Lightning!

113. The only difference between my pet and your pet is

114. mine have three-inch teeth, and they weigh 400 pounds.

115. Does it feel good to stand on my stage

116. with 500-pound tigers and everybody envy you?

117. Absolutely. Okay?

118. I would be the biggest liar if I said no.

119. Now, stop.

120. That's a brand-new shirt, now quit it!

121. Do you have a sense of bonding with them, or do you have a— Ooh.

122. Is there, like an emotional connection between you and these cats?

123. There is a very emotional connection between me and these cats. Extreme.

124. That's his deal right now.

125. I mean, his whole deal is about just wanting—

126. Petted and loved on, you know?

127. - They're so affectionate and fond— - Are these trying to mate?

128. Well, they're two boys.

129. - Oh, they're two boys. - We have a very open relationship here.

130. We do not discriminate here.

131. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

132. I'd like to welcome you

133. to the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park.

134. I can assure you're going to get closer to tigers and lions here

135. than you would anywhere in the world. Matter of fact, you're gonna get so close

136. I can almost promise you some of you will be urinated on.

137. If that happens, we have t-shirts in the gift shop

138. that says, "I got peed on by a tiger."

139. All right, everybody, what I need you guys to do

140. is walk down the fence line here.

141. Follow Katrina. We're gonna introduce you to your first dangerous animal.

142. I'm kind of embarrassed to say it, but when I got here,

143. I was on kind of the end of my ropes.

144. and I was like, "Man! I never done this shit before!

145. What the fuck? Let's go!"

146. And now look at me! I'm doing tiger shows!

147. I've been the manager at the G.W. Zoo for 14 years now.

148. Most of the staff was unique.

149. That's what I thought was really cool about the zoo.

150. And then there's Joe.

151. Do the dance!

152. I love you so much!

153. The people who worked for Joe were misfits,

154. and they were a family.

155. It was a place where all these misfits could come together

156. and be with the King of Misfits, who reigned over them.

157. Joe is an entertainer by nature.

158. No. Come on.

159. He was pretty much the star of his own show.

160. I'm going to try and get some good shots.

161. So make sure ya'll get me some promo pictures in there.

162. Want me to go up?

163. No, I want you up front with a still camera.

164. Meeting him in person definitely solidified that.

165. For Joe, the zoo was his stage.

166. It was the one place he could shine.

167. He could control every aspect of it.

168. From the start of the day to the end of the day, he filmed everything.

169. Come here, love me! Come here, love me!

170. He had this live TV show that he would do

171. for a number of his followers.

172. Hello, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to JoeExoticTV.com.

173. Where does your TV show air?

174. On the internet. Worldwide. Every night at six o'clock.

175. Pretty cool. Come on in.

176. Joe had been doing these internet broadcasts,

177. either on a regular basis or periodically,

178. for probably a decade or longer before I got there.

179. Didn't Johnny Carson used to smoke on the set of the Tonight Show?

180. Yeah, years ago!

181. He never had more than 80 people watching the thing live.

182. See ya Monday night, right here!

183. When I walked in, I had all this experience.

184. I had a national reputation.

185. If you watch us often, you know one of our reporters, Rick Kirkham, is nuts.

186. With a mere touch of a flame, it was instant Kirkham kabob.

187. Hey, Mike, get the charcoal!

188. You know, I've done a lot of shit in my life,

189. but I've never experienced anything like Joe Exotic.

190. He knew that I could make him famous.

191. I took it to a new level

192. because I made it look like a real TV show.

193. We did a show every night

194. and I want to say nine out of ten shows

195. was about the animal rights people and Carole down in Florida.

196. One thing you're forgetting out there, you animal rights people,

197. and especially Carole Baskin—

198. And that's Carole Baskin down at Big Cat Rescue.

199. It was all part of Carole Baskin's plan when—

200. paid it to Carole Baskin.

201. Carole Baskin is so influential.

202. That Carole Baskin—

203. And Carole Baskin...

204. Man, if he ever had an enemy in his life, it was Carole Baskin.

205. Hi, I'm Carole Baskin and I'm the founder and CEO of Big Cat Rescue.

206. We're the world's largest accredited sanctuary

207. that is devoted entirely to caring for big cats.

208. Since 2006,

209. we've been in this pissing match over tigers.

210. If there's one thing I know for sure

211. it's that big cats don't belong in cages.

212. I kept to myself. I did my own thing.

213. And I picked up an Oklahoma newspaper one day

214. and here's this story about this trashy little roadside zoo.

215. And it was me!

216. Her whole plan is to get her following to believe

217. that we're abusing tigers and running us all out of business.

218. Your destination is ahead on the right.

219. Here comes Carole.

220. Oh, she's dressed perfectly.

221. More like this?

222. You want me to get down, so you've got this cat?

223. Yeah, that's great, thank you.

224. Okay, go ahead.

225. This is Joseph the lion, and he came from a facility in Ohio...

226. I really believe in life that you can only be good at one thing.

227. He's gonna get nasty with me.

228. With saving the cats,

229. it's one thing that I can fix if I can just stay focused on that.

230. So I don't read the newspaper,

231. I don't watch news on television unless there's a cat involved.

232. Where are we headed?

233. We're headed to Cameron and Zaboo.

234. She's saving the very best part for last 'cause they love the turkey necks.

235. This is Bengali, an old circus tiger.

236. You can see how they go from being so sweet

237. to just wanting to tear your face off, and they could do it like that,

238. and it's like, "Oh! That's amazing to have that kind of range

239. and that speed!"

240. I live, eat, and breathe ending the captivity of wild cats.

241. And I know that I'm gonna see this through to the end.

242. What really sets apart Big Cat Rescue from a zoo

243. is that we are fixing the problem,

244. they are creating the problem.

245. People like Joe Exotic,

246. what they are doing is breeding cats for life in cages.

247. A tiger needs 400 square miles of territory in the wild.

248. So there's no cage that's going to be sufficient.

249. But the reason that we have cats in cages

250. is to provide them a safe place to live until they die.

251. This was our oldest cat.

252. Black Mamba was a jaguar, Oakie was an ocelot,

253. Champlaine was a Canada lynx.

254. You're following me again.

255. You wanna lead?

256. You can read plaques too.

257. I think it would be fair to say that Carole is the Mother Teresa of cats.

258. You're so wonderful.

259. The very first image that my parents had of me in the cradle,

260. it was me and the cat.

261. I'd never been a person that had friends,

262. and so my friends were two imaginary white cats.

263. I've always had cats in my life,

264. and I've always felt a certain affinity toward them.

265. I'm actually allergic to cats,

266. so my entire house is like, you know, tile floors, no curtains,

267. metal furniture, that sort of thing.

268. Carole, tell me about this room, 'cause everything has a certain pattern.

269. That is cat print.

270. - And this? - That was a gift.

271. - And this? And— - This I actually had painted.

272. Most of what I wear are cat prints.

273. It's almost a uniform.

274. When I go in to talk with a legislator,

275. if I go in there dressed head to toe in cat prints,

276. people remember, "Oh, that's the person that's gonna be all over my case

277. about why cats need to be protected."

278. Carole, you even have cat luggage!

279. It's always easy to find my luggage when I get off the plane.

280. I think it's a great look.

281. And this is the Tiger King gift shop, where I have all of my stuff.

282. We got honey, we got barbecue sauce,

283. we have steak sauce, skin cream.

284. - I have sex gel for you and her! - Sex gel?

285. The best seller out of this gift shop is actually Tiger King underwear line.

286. People just go crazy over 'em because they're all in animal print.

287. - Do you wear these yourself? - I don't wear underwear.

288. You don't wear underwear?

289. No, freeball it.

290. Oh. Wow.

291. I've been the cover of Hollywood Magazine twice.

292. I have my first two albums that I did.

293. This is my first album, I Saw A Tiger,

294. and this is my second album, Starstruck.

295. And there's 28 songs and 16 music videos.

296. When I first met Joe, I was like a month out of high school.

297. I was with Joe from 2003 to 2014,

298. so 11 years.

299. He showed me love

300. and I learned how big my heart was.

301. And how much to care.

302. Are you gettin' this?

303. Three, two, one.

304. John's a strong, silent type.

305. A man of few words.

306. But what a hunk.

307. At the age of 13, I knew I was gay.

308. And I had a bad time struggling with it.

309. When my father found out,

310. he made me shake his hand in front of my mom

311. and promise not to come to his funeral.

312. So, I had a real issue dealing with that,

313. and one night I drove my car off a bridge.

314. I broke my back...

315. and spent five years in braces.

316. I went to Florida to do my therapy...

317. and my neighbor was the manager of Lion Country Safari.

318. And he brought home all the baby lions and baby monkeys

319. and stuff at night to bottle feed.

320. And that's where my attraction to exotic animals really started in.

321. What?

322. I know that they have a heart and a soul and a mind.

323. I've learned from them, and they do therapy for me.

324. Let's see your foot, sexy lion!

325. But the animal rights people,

326. they keep sayin' I can't have these tigers.

327. There's a war in America that's being fought

328. for an enormous amount of money.

329. The animal rights activists,

330. they want the lion's share,

331. and they don't want to share their lions.

332. In addition to Joe,

333. the most notorious...

334. cub breeder/petting operation

335. is Doc Antle.

336. Antle is much more sophisticated, much smarter.

337. He's fearless.

338. Fifty acres makes up the preserve here.

339. We're gonna film, you know— this is my crib here.

340. Go to the front door and I'll go open it and say, "Hi. How you doing? Come in."

341. - Good idea. - Okay?

342. I like that Doc is better at directing than we are.

343. - Hey. - How you doing, guys?

344. Hi, it's Eric Goode. How are you?

345. - Doing good. Come on in. - Good to see you. Thanks.

346. This is Swami Satchidananda,

347. my grandfather guru who—

348. A guy I lived with since I was a teenager.

349. All right, so I am Dr. Bhagavan Antle.

350. B-h-a-g-a-v-a-n. Antle, A-n-t-l-e. Dr. Bhagavan Antle.

351. I am the director of the Myrtle Beach Safari

352. and the rare species fund.

353. And speaking of incredible animals,

354. joining us is the founder and director of TIGERS.

355. - Good afternoon, guys!

356. This is my little girl, Bubbles!

357. Look at the pictures there.

358. That really is Bubbles and I as kids together.

359. You can see somehow both of us got way bigger over the years.

360. I have been building this incredible preserve

361. for people to have an interactive, up-close,

362. uncaged experience with wildlife.

363. Now these big teeth also make it

364. so that he can take down larger prey than you would expect.

365. And he thinks coming out here is a wee bit of a drag.

366. To see an animal going to chase that high-speed lure,

367. diving into that crystal-clear pool...

368. Look at the camera!

369. People become wildly stimulated

370. at seeing that amazing stuff up close and uncaged.

371. I am popular,

372. I am so well known as big cat guy around the world,

373. that people who are against people having relationships with animals, period,

374. want to destroy me because I am out there in the forefront

375. so known of being this guy that is in love with big cats

376. and has them love him back.

377. Joe wanted to be so much like Doc Antle,

378. he sent several of us up there to see his facilities,

379. so we can do the same in his place.

380. He's taught me quite a bit

381. as far as being able to market the zoo and make money at the zoo.

382. Oh, my god, here are the cubs!

383. All right, so, we're gonna make sure everybody standing up

384. gets your turn to come down here and love on this baby tiger

385. 'cause that's what you came here for.

386. The animal rights people like to bitch at you

387. that cub petting is abuse, okay.

388. In my opinion, it's the best education tool.

389. And keep in mind, in the rain forest, there's no escalators. All right?

390. You know, people only care about saving what affects them.

391. So you set a baby tiger in a family's lap

392. and they fall in love with this baby tiger,

393. and you have 15 minutes of their undivided attention to say,

394. "Look, we gotta save the rain forest

395. because you're killing this little baby tiger's...

396. you know, where he came from."

397. They leave with a whole different attitude.

398. Aww!

399. We believe these incredible, up-close experiences

400. makes a connection between them and the wild world,

401. opening their hearts and their wallets,

402. for us to do our worldwide conservation work.

403. What is the cost of admission here?

404. Three-thirty-nine is the start price, right?

405. There's people that paid 625, 655 for their tours today.

406. 'Cause it's dynamic price like an airline ticket.

407. The price goes up according to how many people are coming on.

408. This is our third time. Second this week.

409. Me and my wife were here Sunday.

410. You can't put a price on holding a baby tiger.

411. - That's his favorite animal. - I mean, I hit the lottery,

412. I'll pay these people whatever they want

413. for me to go down to the reservation every day and play with them.

414. We charge a premium because it costs so much

415. to do proper care.

416. We feed super quality food

417. that anyone would be glad to eat themselves.

418. It's a minimum of $10,000 a year to feed each tiger.

419. I can feed a tiger for $3,000 a year.

420. You've got how many tigers now?

421. I have 227.

422. So you're spending...

423. three quarters of a million feeding your tigers?

424. Just feeding 'em.

425. We work our ass off in order to drop that price.

426. We have feed lots that give us five to seven cows a day...

427. that die in the feed lots.

428. The game wardens and the highway patrol call us any time

429. that a cow or a deer gets hit on the highway.

430. If I was to feed nothing but cows,

431. I would need 30 cows a day.

432. That's it.

433. This was actually me and my brother's dream, you know.

434. In 1997,

435. he was moving my sister from Dallas to Florida

436. and he made it 40 miles.

437. And a drunk semi driver hit him.

438. - Who's this? - My brother.

439. - That's the one that— - Yup. Yep.

440. So, when I signed the papers to shut his life support machine off

441. and donate his organs,

442. I promised him that he would just not be a statistic...

443. that the people of the world would know who he is.

444. And that's when the GW Exotic Animal Foundation was born, in his memory.

445. My brother, he's an angel now.

446. I went to schools and I talked to them about drugs and alcohol.

447. But I couldn't keep their attention, okay?

448. So I took animals.

449. What do we say to drugs?

450. We say no to drugs, that's right.

451. Because drugs will make your teeth fall out,

452. and you get really ugly and you don't have any friends.

453. Animals just wasn't enough, okay?

454. So then I started adding magic.

455. He'd put on a magic show, which actually was pretty cool.

456. He would use animals in it.

457. He had a 12-year-old kid kind of showing him how to do stuff.

458. I first met Joe when I was in the eighth grade.

459. I helped in a show down in Norman, Oklahoma.

460. Joe wasn't doing magic.

461. I started showing him some of the magic that I did.

462. And Joe supplied tigers to be used during the show.

463. We're talking this morning about the upcoming

464. Mystical Magic of the Endangered Show.

465. It's coming to the Valley View Mall.

466. That's when he decided to change his name to Joe Exotic.

467. My real name is Joe Schreibvogel.

468. I go by Joe Exotic

469. 'cause nobody ever knows how to say it right anyway.

470. When we first started out, we were all crammed in a semi.

471. Fourteen of us in a cab of a semi, that's a little cramped.

472. Today we have a Siberian Tiger, an Indochinese Tiger,

473. a two-toed sloth, a black panther...

474. Joe was taking tiger cubs, stick 'em in a semi,

475. and carting them to malls all throughout the Midwest.

476. They would do cub petting.

477. You could take your picture with this little baby cub.

478. Look at me! Awesome.

479. I mean, there was times that we may have made ten grand

480. at the mall.

481. And there was times that we were doing 20, 30, 40 grand.

482. Howard and Carole hired me at the beginning of 2011

483. to basically try to track Joe

484. and convince the malls to not allow him to exploit cubs.

485. We started a program where we would contact the malls

486. and explain to them why this was bad.

487. At one point, we used someone to follow Joe

488. and report what mall they were going to next.

489. The animals' presence isn't...

490. It was, you know,

491. part detective work to try to track down Joe

492. and where he was in the country with these cubs.

493. And they stalk every move you make.

494. Doesn't matter where you are in the country.

495. They would research it, find the owners of the mall

496. and email them, text 'em, call 'em, send the media out there, everything.

497. Just hammer 'em.

498. Years ago when Carole first started doing this,

499. we might generate 500 emails...

500. - And be proud of it. - Yeah.

501. And as our online audience grew and our supporter base grew,

502. this gradually got up to thousands of emails.

503. Sometimes as many as five or six thousand emails.

504. And one by one,

505. these malls started refusing to have him back.

506. That would pay the bills for the winter sometimes.

507. So it was definitely a big loss for us.

508. But Joe always found a way to make money.

509. One of the most popular adventures here

510. at the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park is a ticket for you,

511. and that's private playtime with a baby tiger.

512. Anybody who poses with an exotic cat is a problem.

513. It just drives more and more and more breeding

514. of these cats who will never live free.

515. Tiger selfies, a big trend on a dating app...

516. The tiger selfie is a growing trend

517. on sites like Tinder and OKCupid apparently.

518. Oh yeah, this is how endangered species can save themselves,

519. by helping us get laid.

520. Wild animals have been brought onto the late-night shows.

521. - How do you hold these? - This way.

522. Hold it against your breast.

523. And when people see that, they want to emulate it.

524. All right, yesterday on my day off

525. I went to the G.W. Zoo.

526. Shoutout to Exotic Joe.

527. I got two more tigers.

528. Now look at me, how young I am there on Letterman.

529. Man! Go back, go back!

530. We might as well do Letterman real quick.

531. Here I am long ago on The Late Show with David Letterman.

532. I've got my big black panther there, Shadow.

533. Jay brought us out into the forefront of people,

534. he got to meet my animals like no one else had ever done.

535. The world's biggest cat coming on there,

536. baby tigers, cheetahs, leopards, everybody out there.

537. Enough?

538. Here I am in costume

539. playing Marvelous Bhagavan, the magic man.

540. And the cubs played themselves.

541. I don't remember a time where it wasn't everything I was doing,

542. having animals in my life.

543. I grew up a professional cowboy in a family of professional cowboys.

544. That led me along to be able to have a quality life

545. of a lot of interaction with amazing domestic and wild animals.

546. I moved to Yogaville in Buckingham, Virginia.

547. I started immersing myself in that life

548. and I saw the incredible power

549. of presenting the animals without barriers,

550. without caging, so that you can really get to see them

551. in all of their power and glory.

552. People in Hollywood, people other places came to me and said,

553. "Hey, we need a tiger to do this.

554. We would like a tiger to do that."

555. - And ready and go. - Action.

556. You are a good kitty.

557. I made 500 gigantic international movies,

558. from Ace Ventura, Jungle Book,

559. Dr. Doolittle, Mighty Joe Young...

560. I mean, it's a huge list of features that we made.

561. Today we're gonna take those same techniques

562. that Doc created while working

563. with Hollywood's top producers and directors

564. to create for you an amazing animal adventure.

565. Have you had your photo taken?

566. No? Keep coming, keep coming.

567. The toenails you gotta watch because they rip your face.

568. Grandma?

569. - How old are they? - Six weeks.

570. From the time that they're four weeks old

571. to the time that they're 16 weeks old,

572. you can profit $100,000 on that cub.

573. Interaction, playtimes, photos.

574. People who pimp out tiger cubs can only use them

575. from the time that they're a few weeks old

576. until they're about 12 weeks old,

577. and when they get to be that age, they can take a finger off.

578. There are enough ignorant people out there

579. who will then take in that tiger and a year later,

580. that cat's two or three hundred pounds and they're calling us saying,

581. "Please get this out of my house."

582. At the same time, there's almost no government regulation

583. of private possession, which I believe

584. is leading to the unbelievable number of these cats in captivity.

585. We have a tiger crisis in this country.

586. Yeah, there's a lion on Mount Perry Road and Gratiot.

587. It was heading west in a hurry.

588. Looks like a jaguar or wolf or something...

589. Zanesville really woke up the public about the fact

590. that there could be dangerous wild animals living right next door to them

591. and they didn't even know it.

592. It walked out in front of me,

593. and it was standing there under the streetlight.

594. Sheriff Matt Lutz said 50 wild animals kept on a private farm

595. had been deliberately set loose.

596. One baboon, three mountain lions and 18 tigers.

597. Anything outside the perimeter gets...

598. definitely gets taken down.

599. The animals were unleashed on the town

600. by a man who kept them in his backyard.

601. I believe that there are a number of ticking time bombs out there,

602. and when those places implode and somebody does something crazy,

603. that will probably push our legislation forward.

604. Forty-eight of his animals were eventually killed,

605. pushing Ohio lawmakers to author a new bill

606. restricting private ownership of exotic pets.

607. It's not that having lions and tigers is bad unto itself.

608. It is the way he took care of them that made it take place.

609. Properly managed wildlife can become a great tool for wildlife education, like…

610. Arguably the loudest, most defiant voice on the front lines

611. of the big cat debate belongs to this man.

612. I'm Joe Exotic and this is Sarge.

613. The president of the Humane Society called this place, and I quote:

614. "A ticking time bomb and potentially ten times worse than Zanesville."

615. It is a ticking time bomb if somebody thinks

616. they're gonna walk in here and take my animals away.

617. It's going to be a small Waco.

618. That's a pretty powerful statement.

619. It's a very powerful statement because I have poured my entire life

620. into what I do.

621. Nobody is gonna walk in here and freely shut me down

622. and take my rights away from me as long as I am not breaking the law.

623. You know, I've been sheriff here now for over eight years,

624. and our community gets its share of crime, drug use, burglaries, domestic assaults.

625. But then there's Joe Exotic.

626. Within a year of becoming sheriff, Joe walks into my office.

627. - Good, good. - Right here.

628. From that point on, it was, uh... it's been nonstop,

629. you know, with the G.W. Zoo and Joe.

630. This is the thing you don't want when you have tigers, folks.

631. It's a real life tornado, and there ain't nothin' you can do

632. besides protect yourself.

633. I've gotten a lot of calls to— "You better watch Joe.

634. He's doing this, he's saying that."

635. One of the things that keeps me awake at night is the park.

636. If you're an animal rights person,

637. and you try and come into this facility,

638. this is what you're going to be greeted with.

639. Joe is a very paranoid person.

640. When I really realized Joe was potentially dangerous

641. was when he made a comment about "this could be another Waco."

642. That stand-off near Waco began as a federal raid

643. when federal agents tried to serve a search warrant.

644. Our hearts go out to these brave agents who died today in the line of duty.

645. And I took that as a direct threat

646. that if my office ever had to take some action out there,

647. we were going to have a shoot-out.

648. This is my little town.

649. I'm the mayor, the prosecutor, the cop, and the executioner.

650. You know, after the Waco deal, me and Joe made a pact.

651. If anything went bad,

652. we were gonna shoot each other.

653. And then that day...

654. I put our names on our bullets right here.

655. I have my name and his name on a bullet.

656. If anything went wrong, it was gonna happen.

657. What kinda camera guy are you?

658. Someone like Joe, who is very polarizing...

659. He can draw out people to oppose him.

660. Oh, fuck yeah!

661. For instance, I mean,

662. I would get a little cut-out postcard like this, addressed to me...

663. picture of Joe with the word evil on it.

664. That was really the point I realized, you know,

665. there's people that are opposite of what Joe believes in.

666. I have defended myself since 2006

667. against People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

668. Carole Baskin is supported by the help of PETA

669. to the point that they've actually made me a target now.

670. PETA is unapologetic in its mission to help animals,

671. and we've been targeting Joe Exotic for many, many years.

672. I think that we can't...

673. underestimate how dangerous some of these people are.

674. They think that animals are being beat everywhere they go.

675. We didn't beat tigers at our zoo.

676. We sure got accused of it.

677. Those people are fucking insane, man.

678. Actually, they scare me.

679. Joe is always armed.

680. There's always a gun at his side.

681. What do you carry that gun for?

682. People.

683. - Not the cats? - Not the cats.

684. I'd shoot you before I shot my cat.

685. We have 24-hour armed guards,

686. three of us wear firearms.

687. That is how bad this has gotten.

688. I sleep with an AK-47 under my mattress.

689. Loaded, ready to roll.

690. Joe, he had threats all the time on Facebook.

691. He had problems with PETA coming onto the park

692. and taking pictures and stuff like that.

693. And trying to discredit him,

694. so he needed extra security.

695. Over the course of eight years, I would guess we have probably taken

696. 40 to 50 police reports from Joe.

697. And we have had people try to get on that park.

698. This guy has been videotaping.

699. And we warned him twice.

700. And he claims he's with PETA.

701. Main thing is—

702. Oh, just investigating some animal rights issues

703. that might be happening.

704. They take things to the extreme.

705. Have you got a tiger in a zoo in a cage? Yeah.

706. How are you gonna keep him from running downtown and going to 7-Eleven?

707. Carole, PETA, those characters want to attack everyone.

708. Carole wants to be the last man standing.

709. There can be only one, and it has to be her.

710. She's got tens of thousands of people out there brainwashed

711. that we're abusing animals.

712. I just called her a plain-out hypocrite.

713. You're open to the public.

714. You're doing boat tours, night tours, day tours, kid tours, kid camps, weddings.

715. You name it.

716. If you're taking photos and stuff,

717. it'd be great if you would use the hashtag "BigCatRescue,"

718. so you can find us there.

719. Go ahead and open the gates and go see some cats.

720. It's a moneymaker for them.

721. These tickets sold out really fast,

722. and so we're so happy to see all you guys.

723. If you're not fuckin' exploiting animals at that point,

724. what the hell are you doing?

725. These guys are checking out Max and Mary-Anne.

726. Carole is, I would have to say, a hero of mine.

727. She's an awesome advocate for cats.

728. These animals have a life to live now. A happy life to live.

729. And I tell everyone this is like the Ritz-Carlton of animal sanctuaries,

730. 'cause you just do an amazing job.

731. - Stop it, you're going to make me cry. - I know.

732. In my opinion, Carole Baskin was as bad as Joe.

733. They were both, you know,

734. taking advantage of exotic animals to make money.

735. So, to me, it was just a feud.

736. Carole Baskin, yup,

737. that lady that profits over 1.5 million dollars

738. suckin' on your heartstrings about shit on the internet

739. that ain't even true!

740. They are always trying to upset me on social media.

741. I got a big mouth and a television station.

742. - It seems to be. - And that works.

743. Why would you give to a facility to rescue animals

744. to live in luxurious cages?

745. Well, how about that one?

746. That mountain lion is sticking his head through a hole in the fence

747. in order to drink out of a—

748. Joe started bashing her. She started bashing him.

749. You know, getting the mall shows canceled.

750. And she put up billboards, and she made this 911 animal abuse site.

751. Joe was one of the top contenders on it.

752. Carole would now and then put up something online

753. about how Joe's breeding and he's bad and all this.

754. And he would go off on his internet show.

755. I consider that bitch to be one of the biggest terrorists

756. in the exotic animal world right now.

757. It is financially draining to fight this woman.

758. To get a little bit of background on Joe,

759. all you gotta do is go to tigercubabuse.com.

760. We got undercover video of him using a 20-week-old cub

761. that jumped on this little boy and bit him on the leg.

762. She's ruthless.

763. Most of us are not ruthless.

764. People who really love animals are rarely ruthless.

765. There shouldn't have to be a place that rescues big cats from abuse

766. in this country.

767. What we're asking you to do is champion the Big Cat Public Safety Act.

768. The Big Cat Public Safety Act would end the ownership

769. of big cats as exotic pets

770. and prohibit exhibitors from allowing the public to have contact with them.

771. The Big Cat Safety Act, if passed,

772. it will destroy private zoos across America.

773. For Carole... and all of her friends that are watching out there,

774. before you bring me down...

775. it is my belief...

776. that you will stop breathing.

777. It got pretty ugly.

778. We hear it's Carole's birthday next month.

779. And we're shipping her two of these!

780. Look at the fangs on that!

781. One day I went out to open up the mailbox

782. and it just exploded with snakes.

783. There are crazy people out there who want to see me dead.

784. Happy birthday, Carole.

785. What... keeps me up at night

786. is worrying about them hurting a family member to get to me.

787. It was just a... hate.

788. He has hate for Carole Baskin. Nasty hate.

789. A hundred rounds of.223.

790. You got it. Is that gonna be it or do you need any explosives today?

791. Carole's taking a nap.

792. There, I've got every animal rights person all in one row.

793. Dynamite.

794. Ready?

795. Aim... Fire.

796. This is a prepaid call from...

797. Joe Exotic.

798. an inmate at the Grady County Jail.

799. I'm in a cage.

800. Do you know why animals die in cages?

801. Their soul dies.

802. I'm not gonna be accused and go to prison,

803. and lose everything I have for things that other people did.

804. Before this is over with,

805. I'm gonna shut down everybody.

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