Joe Exotic
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| “ | If they don't wanna walk, pop them in the ass and make them walk! | „ |
| ~ Joe Exotic instructing his employees to abuse tigers |
Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage (né Schreibvogel; born March 5, 1963), better known as Joe Exotic, is an American media personality and convicted felon. The former owner and operator of the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park (a.k.a. G. W. Zoo) in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, Exotic had claimed to be the most prolific breeder of tigers in the United States. He twice unsuccessfully ran for public office, first for President of the United States in 2016 as an independent, and then for Governor of Oklahoma in 2018 as a Libertarian.
In 2019, Exotic was convicted on 17 federal charges of animal abuse (eight violations of the Lacey Act and nine of the Endangered Species Act) and two counts of murder for hire, for a plot to kill Big Cat Rescue CEO Carole Baskin, with whom he had a completed rivalry. He is serving a 17-21 year sentence in federal prison. Well known for his eccentric and dynamic personality, Exotic is one of the most controversial zookeepers in history. He has been subject to substantial criticism, especially for the controversies surrounding his feud with Baskin and the treatment of animals at the G.W. Zoo. Some former zookeepers who worked with him claimed that Exotic lost his love for animals towards the end of his zookeeping career.
On July 15, 2021, a US appeals court ruled that Exotic's sentence was too harsh and that the 2 separate murder attempts were treated as separate convictions. His sentence was reduced to 17-21 years.
Crimes edit
Animal abuse claims and USDA violations edit
In February 1999, animal welfare investigators discovered a large number of neglected emus in Red Oak, Texas, and Exotic volunteered to capture the animals and take them to his animal park. However, Exotic, local volunteers, and Red Oak police were quickly overwhelmed by the task of corralling the large and fast-running birds, several of which died. Exotic and another man resorted to killing emus with shotguns and were accused of animal cruelty by police. However, since the emus were considered livestock, they could lawfully be killed humanely in Texas, and a grand jury declined to indict Exotic. Most surviving birds ultimately wound up at Texas ranches.
In 2000, to feed his growing zoo of big cats, he took in horses that were donated to him. He would shoot the horses and feed them whole to the tigers, lions, and other big cats.
Due to the number of exotic animals at his zoo, Exotic found feeding them all to be expensive. To help offset the cost, Exotic fed them expired meat from Walmart. Employees at the zoo also ate this expired Walmart meat, and also used the expired meat to make pizzas.
In 2006, the G.W. Zoo was cited multiple times by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for violations of Animal Welfare Act standards.
Feud with Carole Baskin edit
| “ | Before you bring me down, it is my belief that you will stop breathing. | „ |
| ~ Joe Exotic about Carole Baskin |
The feud between Exotic and Carole Baskin began in 2009 when Baskin, who sought to end commercial cub petting in the United States, targeted Exotic's lucrative traveling shows. Although Exotic and the Wynnewood park had been subject to protests and investigations by animal rights organizations such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, these efforts had been sporadic and poorly organized, and did not seriously hamper his business. Baskin's Big Cat Rescue organization—which had a very popular Facebook page and many informal volunteers recruited on social media—proved to be a more daunting antagonist. Big Cat Rescue volunteers began to track Exotic's movements and email bomb managers of shopping malls that hosted his shows, prompting many of them to cancel, jeopardizing his revenue stream
Exotic saw Baskin's actions as hypocritical because she also operated an animal sanctuary that charged admission, albeit for nonprofit purposes. Exotic responded to Baskin's social media efforts by setting up his own TV studio and YouTube channel at the G.W. Zoo, hosting a nightly talk show that increasingly focused on vitriolic attacks against Big Cat Rescue and Baskin personally. He covertly visited Big Cat Rescue in September 2010 and chartered a helicopter to survey the property. He obtained a copy of Baskin's diary stolen from her computer by a former employee and posted excerpts online.
Baskin's second husband, Don Lewis, disappeared in 1997 and was declared legally dead in 2002. Evidence of foul play is lacking and Baskin was never named as a suspect; however, Lewis's daughter asserts that Baskin killed Lewis and fed his body to her tigers, and Exotic used his YouTube show to loudly promote this story and other conspiracy theories relating to Lewis's disappearance, offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to Baskin's arrest
In 2011, Exotic copied the Big Cat Rescue name and various identifying aspects of the sanctuary's branding in his marketing, rebranding his traveling show as "Big Cat Rescue Entertainment" with a Florida phone number. Baskin claims that she was quickly inundated with emails and phone calls from distraught supporters who assumed that she was operating the traveling show. Baskin sued Exotic for trademark infringement and was eventually awarded a $1 million settlement from him although she was unable to collect most of it. Two years later, Exotic filed for bankruptcy.
In 2015, Exotic's mother Shirley was sued by Big Cat Rescue over assets that belonged to Exotic or the G.W. Zoo being transferred into and out of her name.
Steve Irwin Memorial and TV studio fire edit
On March 26, 2015, a fire broke out at the G.W. Zoo, destroying the Steve Irwin Memorial and Exotic's TV studio, where he shot his YouTube videos and stored footage for a planned reality series. All but one of Michael Jackson's alligators were killed. The blaze was thought to have been started by an arsonist, possibly a vindictive employee, but no one was ever arrested. Exotic blamed animal rights activists for the incident, while Tiger King speculated that the perpetrator may have been Exotic himself or Rick Kirkham, the reality TV producer who worked with him.
Kirkham asserts that Exotic and zoo employees sought to destroy incriminating footage he had stored in the TV studio. Kirkham says that Exotic killed some of his own tigers, and that he had a video of Exotic killing animals, but it was lost in the fire. During an interview, Kirkham remarked, "There was footage in there of Exotic actually killing animals for fun. In the course of my year, he walked up to a tiger he didn't like and just shot it in the head."
Feud with other Schreibvogel family members and former GW Zoo employees edit
With the exception of his brother Garold, Exotic did not have a good relationship with his family; in particular, his estranged brother Yarri has been very critical of him, believing that he manipulated the Schreibvogel family to take the money from Garold's death for himself. Exotic's niece Chealsi Putman, who worked at the GW Zoo periodically from 1999 to 2017, also criticized him. In April 2021, Putman was interviewed by Louis Theroux for Shooting Joe Exotic, where she claimed that the tigers Exotic shot were not sick.
Several of Exotic's former employees at the GW Zoo have called out his actions in interviews after the release of Tiger King. He has most frequently been criticized by Rick Kirkham, who claimed that things were "a hell of a lot worse" than what's depicted in Tiger King; ""[Watching Tiger King], you kinda had a little bit of a heart for the guy, but you really didn't realize or get to see how evil he really could be, not only to animals but to people." In the Tiger King aftershow, Kirkham stated that Exotic was terrified of lions and tigers, and remarked "It's idotic to think how Exotic's become famous as the Tiger King when he's so terrified of big cats."