Inside The ABANDONED Tiger King Zoo (Frozen Since 2020)
Today, we are in Oklahoma, exploring America’s most infamous zoo, home of Netflix’s The Tiger King. Joseph Maldonado, also known as Joe Exotic ran the zoo since the late 1990s, and grew worldwide fame after Tiger King premiered on Netflix in 2020, showing his feud with Carole Baskin and his later arrest for a murder for hire plot. It all started in the early 2000s, when Joe primarily made his money through breeding tigers, roadside zoo tourism, and bringing tiger cubs to malls for photos. Around 2010, Carol Baskin, who owned Big Cat Rescue in Florida, caught wind of what Joe was doing, and contacted malls, sponsors, local officials, and animal welfare groups, which led to many of them cutting ties with Joe. He responded quickly, after claiming she hurt his income and defamed his name, by launching an online video show inside the zoo called Joe Exotic TV. In it, he mocked Carole constantly, threatened her verbally, and even filmed himself shooting mannequins representing her. This brought this feud into a national-news bizarre. However, things only got worse. Joe renamed his traveling act: Big Cat Rescue Entertainment, which copied Baskin’s organization name. She sued him for trademark infringement - and won roughly $1 million in damages. But, Joe couldn't pay. This led to Baskin ultimately gaining control of Joe’s zoo property. While all this was happening, Joe Exotic’s husband shot himself by accident inside of the Zoo’s giftshop, while pointing it toward himself while joking with a coworker. The bullet hole is reportedly still inside. This happened at the same time Joe was fighting lawsuits and escalating his feud with Carole. His behavior reportedly became more unstable, and the timeline moved quickly toward the murder for hire case later that year. This triggered a full federal case. Investigators were already looking at wildlife trafficking violations, illegal tiger sales, falsified breeding records, and euthanizing healthy animals. The murder for hire evidence sealed the prosecution. In 2019, he was convicted and received a 22 year sentence. With that, animals were seized, USDA licensing collapsed, and Baskin’s organization fully gained control of the zoo. She then ensured the site could never reopen as a tiger attraction again. Around 2020 it closed for good, never to reopen. Today, everything is still frozen in time. Joe’s house, hundreds of enclosures, animal bones, and so much more is left behind. Come with me as we venture inside to discover whats left.
I was joined by...
@StringerMedia
@BigBankz
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