- [Narrator] The Netflix
documentary series, Tiger King
has found a captive audience stuck
at home during coronavirus lockdowns.
- There's really only one big story
that everybody's talking about.
Tiger King.
- Tiger King.
- Tiger King.
It has to be seen to be believed
and even then it's so wild.
- [Narrator] The protagonist personalities
and deep-seated rivalry have
become cultural touchstones.
Making lines like this.
- Hey, all you cool cats
and kittens, it's Carol.
- [Narrator] Into viral memes.
Tiger King elevated the bizarre culture
of tiger ownership in the United States.
But it didn't reveal how
prolific this culture really is.
That's because no one's really sure.
(Slow music)
There's somewhere between 5,000
and 15,000 captive tigers
living in the US today.
That's a lot more than the roughly
3,500 tigers living in the wild.
Their numbers have fallen for decades
due to poaching and loss of habitat.
The vast majority of tigers living
in the United States don't live in zoos.
They're owned by private individuals.
Because of this, there
isn't a clear record
of how many tigers there
are in the United States
and where exactly they're being kept.
According to legal experts
and animal rights activists,
the laws meant to protect
tigers actually led
to their proliferation in this country.
Putting the animals lives
and public safety at risk.
Most of the tigers in
the US weren't rescued
abroad or smuggled in.
They were born here.
There are nine subspecies of tigers.
Three are extinct and the
remaining six are endangered.
Accredited zoos in the United
States have breeding programs
designed to sustain
endangered tiger populations,
but those make up a small fraction
of the tigers believed to be in the US.
Most are bred at so-called roadside zoos.
- It's really not a zoo.
It's just a menagerie of animals.
They offer pay to play
experiences where you get
tiger baby time, where
you can play on the floor
with baby animals, including tigers.
- [Narrator] This contact
with baby tigers is called
Cub petting and can be big
business for roadside zoos.
- Cub petting is extremely
lucrative for exhibitors.
In fact, one cub can yield
up to a million dollars
in revenue during its lifetime.
- [Narrator] The US
department of agriculture,
which regulates roadside
zoos allows cub petting
but recommends it be limited to cubs
between eight and 12 weeks old.
With such a limited window
for public interactions,
roadside zoos are compelled
to keep breeding tigers.
Experts say that this
demand for cubs has led
to extensive crossbreeding of
tigers in the United States
to the point where most are
no longer genetically similar
to those found in the wild.
The most notorious example
of this is the white tiger.
- White tigers are not
a separate sub species
yet here in the United
exhibitors love to breed them.
The problem is these tigers
have to be heavily inbred.
Along with the white
coloring comes really,
really premature death,
renal failure and serious
kidney problems, blindness
and also facial deformities.
- [Narrator] As many as 95%
of the tigers in the United
States are believed to be
these so-called generic tigers
and for a long time the US
government didn't regulate
them like other subspecies.
Tigers in the United States are protected
by the Endangered Species Act.
This law prohibits the
sale and transportation
of endangered animals
unless you get a permit
from the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
- And that permit application
has to be supported
by some sort of demonstration
that the underlying activity
benefits the species'
survival in the wild.
- [Narrator] In 1998, the Fish
and Wildlife Service removed
the permitting requirements
for generic tigers.
Their reasoning was that these
tigers lacked conservation
value, meaning if they
didn't exist in the wild,
then there was no reason
to regulate their movement here in the US.
this created a loophole
for breeders to sell off
their generic tigers that
were too old for cub petting
- And you would see without
fail every single month,
tiger cubs available for sale for a couple
of hundred bucks or even for free,
once they pass that age
where they could no longer
be legally handled by the public.
- [Narrator] The loophole
was closed in 2016
but experts say by then
thousands of tigers
had made their way across the country.
- For that loophole to exist for 18 years,
created an environment where
enough tigers were bred
as quickly as possible,
for many of them to
fall into a black hole.
- [Narrator] States vary in
their restrictions of big cat
ownership, from outright bans
to no restrictions at all.
Which experts say leads to them falling
into inexperienced hands
and abusive situations.
Private ownership advocates
contend that while
irresponsible big cat
ownership can lead to abuse,
this represents a small
portion of private owners
and has declined as new owners have become
better educated about big cats.
- No private individual has the capability
of providing a humane
existence for these animals
and you cannot tame an apex predator.
You cannot take the wild out of a tiger.
- [Reporter] Dozens of
exotic animals escape
from an animal reserve in Zanesville.
Deputies armed with assault
rifles went to the animal farm
where they found the owner
dead, animal cages open.
- [Narrator] In 2011 an
Ohio man released dozens
of his privately owned exotic animals,
including 18 tigers into
the local community.
- He released these
animals into the community
placed first responders in an
absolutely no-win situation
where they were forced to
literally slaughter these animals
in order to keep the community safe.
So, that's what the Big
Cat Public Safety Act
would help solve.
- [Narrator] The Big Cat Public Safety Act
is pending legislation that if enacted,
would ban private ownership
of big cats and ban
public interactions like cub
petting at roadside zoos.
Opponents of the legislation
say laws currently on the books
are sufficient to protect big cats
and that the problem lies
with lack of enforcement.
They also contend that a
blanket ban on private big cat
ownership would create a precedent
to ban other exotic pets.
- America loves tigers because tigers
are the most iconic of
the big cat species.
They're really
representative of how we look
at conservation of protected animals.
Their role is much bigger
than just tigers themselves.
