♪ ♪
REPORTER (over TV): Stars like Jared Leto dressed up like Joe Exotic.
COLBERT (over TV): There's really only one big story.
WOMAN (over TV): The number one show in the U. S.
ROBERTS (over TV): You cannot turn away.
MARIANA: Joe Exotic, Carole Baskin, Doc Antle.
SIMPSON: White people, what's with you and wild animals?
MARIANA: When Tiger King became a phenomenon.
CAROLE: Hey, all you cool cats and kittens.
DEGENERES: Hey, all you cool cats and kittens, it's me Ellen.
MARIANA: It made each of them household names.
MAN: Joe Exotic.
(speaking in native language).
WOMAN: Netflix Tiger King.
JOE: And I saw tiger.
REPORTER: Cardi B wants to free the Tiger King.
JOURNALIST: He's asking you for a pardon, saying he was unfairly convicted.
TRUMP: I'll take a look.
MARIANA: But while the series focuses on the bizarre private lives at the center
of America's big cat industry,
very little attention is given to the status of tigers today.
In America, tiger cubs are bred so guests can snap pictures at roadside zoos.
In Asia, they're poached, farmed, butchered, and turned into products.
At a time when one of the most iconic predators faces extinction,
we set out to tell the real story of the tiger.
Who are the breeders?
DOC: I am the only one qualified.
No one else in the world has ever done what we do.
MARIANA: Who are the traffickers?
ANNA: They do not like journalists.
They're probably gonna torture you if they find out you're a journalist.
MARIANA: And what can we do to save the tiger?
♪ ♪
(phone ringing)
VOICE (over phone): Prepaid call from.
JOE: Joe Exotic.
VOICE (over phone): An inmate at the Grady County Jail.
This call is also subject to being recorded or monitored.
JOE (over phone): Hello?
MARIANA: Hi. How are you doing? Mariana here.
JOE (over phone): Hi.
MARIANA: Thank you so much for calling me.
It all started with an online reality show.
JOE (over TV): I'm Joe Exotic, the gay, gun‐carrying redneck with a mullet.
MARIANA: Before Netflix's hit series Tiger King made Joe Exotic famous worldwide.
MAN: He was like a mythical character living out in the middle of (bleep) Oklahoma.
MARIANA: But lost in the hype surrounding the series...
MARIANA: Was a serious discussion about private tiger ownership in America.
JOE (over phone): I've been in the tiger industry for a little over 20 years now.
Probably the largest breeder and handler of, of tigers in the United States.
MARIANA: So give me just a sense of the tiger sort of community, cub petting, zoos, and all that.
You know, I, I'm stuck trying to figure out why the hell I'm in jail for, first of all.
MARIANA: To be clear, Joe Exotic is behind bars
because he was convicted of the attempted murder for hire
of Carole Baskin, as well as 17 wildlife crimes.
CARNEY ANNE: In the words of the judge at Joe Exotic's sentencing,
Joe is a master manipulator who has engaged in quote,
"systematic trafficking of tigers and other big cats."
MARIANA: Yet critics of Tiger King say the series celebrated Joe,
while largely overlooking his treatment of animals.
CARNEY ANNE: Joe is not a folk hero.
He is somebody who, for decades, profited off of the
exploitation and abuse of animals.
And Joe is finally where he belongs.
MARIANA: So why would you want to breed a tiger?
Well, in the U. S., roadside zoos can bring in big money by
offering cub petting experiences to tourists.
JOHN: You know, they raise tiger cubs so that people can pay money and take selfies.
So they have to have this constant supply of these little tiny tiger cubs
between one and four months.
WOMAN: Oh, look, look, look, look.
JOHN: So there's just this huge breeding operation.
But the key thing here is that after the cubs are about four months old,
they're too dangerous to, for the public to handle.
They need to be handed off somewhere.
And often I don't think we really know what happens to them.
MARIANA: To understand the scope of the issue,
National Geographic Magazine reviewed Joe Exotic's records
from 2010 to 2018 and learned that his zoo traded nearly 200 tigers with
dozens of other private owners across America.
MARIANA: Breeders like Joe are one of the reasons that there are now an estimated
5,000 to 10,000 tigers in the United States.
With less than 4,000 tigers left in the wild,
there are now more tigers living in captivity in the U. S.
than there are wild tigers living in the rest of the world.
JOE (over phone): If something' endangered, hell, we need to start breeding it, do we not?
Is that not what the purpose of being endangered is is we need more of?
MARIANA: But it's not that simple.
And my journey to understand why, takes me to the other side of the world.
Tigers face a grave threat in the wild as they make up part
of the $20 billion‐a‐year illegal wildlife trade.
♪ ♪
(singing in native language)
♪ ♪
MARIANA: To see just what the tiger is up against,
I'm headed to the frontlines of that global black market.
STEVE: One dead tiger will usually fetch between $30,000 and $50,000.
MARIANA: Steve Galster is the founder of Freeland Foundation,
an NGO working to end wildlife trafficking all over the world.
STEVE: They're taking pictures of what they're gonna sell.
There is the head, and then they've got the ribs.
MARIANA: Steve is showing me tiger parts seized by authorities.
The parts were likely destined for tiger wine or tiger pills.
Due to age‐old cultural traditions, buyers believe, without any scientific evidence,
that tiger products cure everything from rheumatism to male impotence.
So the bone wine, all of that, this is all black market?
STEVE: Yeah. All tiger part trade is illegal.
MARIANA: To brew tiger wine, bones of a recently slaughtered
tiger are steeped in a vat of rice wine for up to eight years.
Demand for the product has increased,
as rising incomes in the region have allowed
more people to afford luxury goods.
There may now be as many as 8,000 tigers in Asian farms alone.
STEVE: This is structured very much like drug trafficking.
You're moving illegal commodities.
The profit margins are high.
The organization is very slick.
In fact, some of these folks made their money in drug trafficking
and moved over into wildlife trafficking.
MARIANA: Tigers illegally sold in this part of the world are often trafficked
through one place, the Golden Triangle.
STEVE: The power of the people who own these tigers and these tiger farms is enormous.
MARIANA: The Golden Triangle is a border region between Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar.
ANNA: You know, I've been working on tiger investigation for a long time.
Golden Triangle, it's known as being a lawless playground for criminals.
MARIANA: Anna, not her real name, is a freelance journalist who has
investigated the black markets of this region for years.
For her safety, we're disguising her identity.
Why here?
Of all the places, why do you think that all this
wildlife trafficking is happening through here?
ANNA: Most wild tigers go to China or Vietnam.
MARIANA: Right. Right.
ANNA: So Laos is like the perfect transit place.
MARIANA: Just across the Mekong River from Thailand lies the Kings Roman Casino.
Run by Zhao Wei, a Chinese businessman.
The casino advertises itself as the place for legal gambling in the region,
but the U. S. Treasury Department has said that Zhao Wei is involved in drug smuggling,
child prostitution, and wildlife trafficking.
ANNA: Drugs, weapons, and wildlife trafficking.
Everything bad, you name it.
MARIANA: So it's sort of like a little criminal enclave inside Laos?
So, in that respect, it's super dangerous because they're trying to protect their income.
ANNA: Yeah.
MARIANA: Zhao Wei has denied the charges against him.
In the past, his casino openly advertised tiger bone wine in promotional brochures.
And recent reports say they are still breeding tigers.
Anna visited the casino grounds herself five days ago and witnessed a zoo with dozens
of tigers, which she believes could be destined for tiger wine.
ANNA: They actually locate it before the casino.
MARIANA: Just tigers in cages? ANNA: Yeah.
MARIANA: Tomorrow I'll be visiting the Kings Roman Casino myself.
♪ ♪
(speaking in native language).
MARIANA: It's the front and back.
I normally do everything I can to avoid looking like a tourist.
Definitely having a bag that says National Geographic,
it's the first thing to ditch.
But Anna tells me Zhao Wei's informants are everywhere in the Golden Triangle.
Perfect, with the little elephants.
So we have to blend in.
So this is Jeff, our director, who's fully embracing the blending in like a tourist.
JEFFREY: That's right. Yeah.
MARIANA: That hat looks great on you.
JEFFREY: Thank you. Yeah.
Tommy gave it to me, our driver, and said,
"You need to look like tourists."
Golden Triangle.
MARIANA: Yay. Cheese. Golden Triangle.
We have a camera. Looks like a tourist camera.
We also have a little selfie stick, which I don't actually know how to operate.
There's gonna be a lot of selfies today.
Lot of smiling.
One thing really important actually is to smile a lot,
make sure we really look like tourists.
We're having a great time.
Everybody has their passports?
JEFFREY: There's our boat.
MARIANA: Okay. Here.
Posing as tourists, my team and I are leaving the relative safety of Thailand
and crossing over into Laos.
This is it, the casino.
Okay. Tourist mode. Let's do this.
It's the Blue Shield Casino, owned by the Kings Roman group.
Here in the Golden Triangle, I'm trying to blend in.
I don't want to catch the attention of alleged criminal boss, Zhao Wei.
So that's the casino.
And behind that big golden building,
that's the hotel, the massive hotel,
they'll build, they're building right behind it.
I'm well aware that journalists looking into the
tiger trade are not welcome.
We should continue going 'cause the security guards at
the casino were looking at us of course.
Let's walk. Let's walk.
Five years ago, conservationists reported
finding tiger wine, tiger meat,
and other endangered animal parts openly for sale at the
casino's Chinatown‐themed shopping center.
There are people looking at us so just pretending.
(speaking native language).
MARIANA: After international outrage,
the Laotian government made a show of raiding some of the
shops and burning tiger skins on TV.
But reports afterward said tiger products were still for sale.
Ooh, look at all the flies on this meat.
Just not openly advertised.
Tasty.
MARIANA: When I asked for tiger meat, I'm laughed at.
No?
I try various shops.
Nobody know?
MAN: Yeah. Nobody know.
MARIANA: But if any of them have black market tiger products,
they're not about to sell them to a Westerner.
Our guide was saying that he doesn't feel like it's very
safe for us to be here anymore.
So we should go, guys.
Let's go.
I suspected this might happen, which is why I'm not the only
one doing an investigation at the casino today.
I'm gonna need your help.
MARIANA: Anna has assembled her own undercover team to try to find out
just how prevalent the black market for tiger really is.
MARIANA: Like me, Anna is rebuffed at first.
ANNA: We walked down this alley, right?
Just like a bunch of old‐style Chinese restaurants.
When you do something like this,
they're not gonna come offer it to you right away, right?
MARIANA: As Anna and her team stake out the restaurants,
I head to look for the tigers themselves.
So looking for the cages which are somewhere over there.
Anna has given me the GPS coordinates of the casino's tiger zoo.
We passed it already basically, it says?
JEFFREY: No. It says we're coming up on it now.
ANNA (over phone): Hi, Mariana.
MARIANA: How are you, Anna? We're here.
ANNA (over phone): What do you see?
MARIANA: Nothing. There's nothing here.
I mean, it's all brand‐new construction site.
There is like a hole. It was all bulldozed.
All turned down. (bleep).
So you were just here five days ago?
And it was all here?
They were all here, tigers in the cages?
ANNA (over phone): It was all here.
MARIANA: It's not here anymore.
It's really frustrating. I strike out again.
But for Anna, things are looking up.
ANNA: It took us one and a half hour.
MARIANA: Just sitting and drinking?
ANNA: Yeah. And talking, and eat some more,
and drink some more until we get really loud, really drunk.
(speaking native language).
And the lady showed up.
(speaking native language).
ANNA: And she, you know, take out this thing.
And I'm like, "Whoa. Whoa. What?"
Such an amazing presentation.
MARIANA: It's incredible. So it's an actual glass.
You see an actual glass.
ANNA: Yeah. Yeah. I have it here too.
You wanna take.
MARIANA: Yes. I'd love to see it.
Anna can't confirm that this is actually tiger wine,
but in a dark twist, the box is labeled tiger king wine.
That it is insane.
ANNA: A couple years ago, almost at every Chinese restaurant
sell tiger bone wine out in the open and tiger meat.
But because the US has sanctioned them,
they really try hard to change the image.
So everything has gone underground.
MARIANA: Investigators in the Golden Triangle say that tiger
products here are increasingly sold under the counter.
Much of the trade has moved to social media,
like the Chinese app, WeChat.
And in Laos and other Asian countries,
criminal groups have been known to utilize zoos as
fronts for commercial breeding.
ANNA: They open a zoo, you know, as front.
And then they breed and, to produce more tiger for
something like this.
MARIANA: So what happened to all of the tigers that Anna
saw in the casino zoo?
(speaking native language).
TOMMY: About three kilometer.
About.
MARIANA: Three kilometers? TOMMY: Yes.
MARIANA: Are they in cages? The tigers in cages?
TOMMY: Yeah. Yeah.
MARIANA: Just when I'm about to get on the boat back to
Thailand, we catch a lucky break.
Tommy here has been inquiring for us all around.
And as we're about to leave, Tommy made some contacts with
this guy behind us who drives a tuk‐tuk,
and he knows where the tigers are located.
The driver says the casino's tigers were moved just a few
days ago to a new zoo high on the mountain.
The driver here says he knows where these,
the tigers have been moved to.
We hope that he actually does know.
And also that he's not taking us to a police station,
or the casino owners, or...
(speaking native language).
MARIANA: Is this, is this, is it here?
(speaking native language).
MARIANA: I think he's turning off into this dirt road.
I think we're getting close, so we don't wanna be seen going in.
The compound appears to be surrounded by a tall perimeter wall.
Okay. So we're at the location.
We're going around the fences to try to see if we can find
an opening in.
As we walk up, we can see black bears in the distance.
Though we can't be sure of the fate of these bears,
in the past, bear paw soup has been offered on menus at Kings Roman Casino.
We've seen bears. We've seen deer.
MAN (over phone): Okay.
MARIANA: We're still trying to find the tiger cages.
And then we hear the roars.
(roaring).
Okay.
He's saying we can see them from here.
Far away but unmistakable.
(roaring).
You see them?
MARIANA: Chinese what? Police? TOMMY: Police.
MARIANA: Okay, guys. Let's walk. Let's walk.
TOMMY: Walk, walk, walk.
MARIANA: Oh, stop. Sorry.
Can you tell him? Just me.
I just wanna get a selfie, a selfie with a tiger.
(speaking native language).
MARIANA: Just me.
(speaking native language).
MARIANA: I won't, I will stay away.
Far away.
TOMMY: She cannot. MARIANA: Just like this.
TOMMY: No. She, he, he says you cannot.
MARIANA: Ah. Okay. Then I will go.
The guards are adamant that we can't get in to see the tigers.
(speaking native language).
MARIANA: It's incredibly frustrating to be so close.
But what they do next is better than the alternative,
they let us go.
Can I smell it?
ANNA: Of course.
MARIANA: Oh. ANNA: (bleep).
Oh, that's (bleep).
MARIANA: So it's a little like vinegary and strong liquor, basically.
ANNA: I can smell it from here. Ugh.
MARIANA: Anna has her suspicions on why they didn't
want us filming the tigers.
ANNA: There's a possibility that those tigers you were
looking for could, might as well end up in this bottle.
The killing hasn't stopped.
Wild tigers has come to a point of almost extinct.
TIM: When you drive along, quite often there's a good
chance of seeing some animals.
Things like deer and gaur, wild boar, maybe jackals.
MARIANA: Tigers? TIM: Yup.
MARIANA: Raising tigers is expensive and time consuming,
so criminal networks often rely on another way to satisfy
the demand for tiger parts, poaching them from the wild.
Before leaving Southeast Asia, I spend two days with an elite
unit of Thai Forest Rangers on the hunt for tiger poachers.
Didn't sleep very well.
I woke up around 2:00 AM, and I was absolutely sure there
was a tiger right next to me.
Of course, none of this was actually happening.
RANGER: Coffee. MAN: Okay.
RANGER: Coffee. MARIANA: Coffee.
MAN: Coffee. RANGER: Coffee.
MARIANA: Mmm. Very good coffee.
RANGER: Uh‐hmm.
MARIANA: So what are you looking for here, Gao?
Footsteps or any sort of evidence that there were poachers here?
TIM: So this is just the wildlife trail that we've
been using to put the camera on.
MARIANA: Oh, this is the camera.
Why is it protected?
TIM: Well, there's a couple of reasons,
but the main reason is from the elephants.
You see how all, this is all bent?
MARIANA: Yeah.
Supporting the rangers' work is Tim Redford,
an anti‐trafficking expert from the Freeland Foundation.
Who's poaching these tigers?
TIM: Fairly poorly paid people, you know?
And they're struggling to make a living.
And these guys are being exploited by middlemen and
kingpins at the top who are making an awful lot of money.
MARIANA: How do you think the tiger farms around this region
affect what's happening here in the park?
TIM: Poachers are seeing tiger.
Farmers are making money.
I want some of that as well.
It's very easy money to go into the forest and shoot a
tiger or snare a tiger, and so the demand is creating more
poaching in the forest.
MARIANA: Oh.
Still worse, wild tiger products are considered more
potent, so buyers will pay more for a poached tiger.
Even as tigers' numbers decline in the wild,
they're rising in captivity in both Asia and the United States.
Conservationists say that undermines our ability to push
for swifter actions in Asia.
CARNEY ANNE: When we want to tell countries like China that
they need to shut down tiger farms,
we have very little credibility when we can't even
figure out how many big cats we have here.
JOHN: You know, we're talking to China and other Asian countries
(roaring).
to try to get them to stop this captive breeding
and tiger farming for the traditional medicine,
but their answer to us is,
"Well, you've got 10,000 tigers in captivity in the United States.
You're breeding them for petting zoos.
How is that more acceptable than breeding them for
medicinal purposes?"
MARIANA: So why has the U. S. allowed its captive tiger population
to grow to such extremes?
That's what I want to find out next,
which is why I'm returning to the land of the Tiger King.
WOMAN: Look. Look, a tiger. Look.
♪ ♪
MARIANA: So it looks like it's a super residential neighborhood over here.
JOE (over phone): As far as breeders, I, I was definitely the biggest breeder.
MARIANA: Joe Exotic won't be eligible for parole until 2034,
but other private tiger owners are breeding cubs in his place.
JOE (over phone): My facility is still doing it.
So Jeff Lowe is, is one of the biggest breeders.
Doc Antle is a big breeder.
MARIANA: If you watched Tiger King,
these names should be familiar,
especially Doc Antle, who Joe Exotic has described as a mentor.
I think this is it, this is the entrance.
There are so many cars here already.
GUIDE: How many guys have been here before? Fresh meat, everyone?
WOMAN: Oh, my God.
MARIANA: Since opening the park in 1983,
Bhagavan "Doc" Antle has raised hundreds of creatures,
big and small.
DOC: This is my little girl, Bubbles.
MARIANA: A bewildering menagerie of exotic animals,
including hybrids that don't exist in nature.
♪ ♪
We should note, National Geographic previously worked with Antle,
though they haven't done so for years.
DOC: Step right up. You can pet that big face.
Look at those incredible eyelashes.
MARIANA: Oh, wow.
DOC: See how she feels right there.
Look right there in the camera.
MARIANA: Doc Antle is best known for his tigers.
If these majestic animals one day disappear from the wild,
this could be their future.
DOC: A kiss. Little kiss.
Myrtle Beach Safari is an interactive wildlife facility
where people can come and visit and get an up‐close,
uncaged experience that allows them to make a connection with
wildlife that isn't available anywhere else.
WOMAN: Look at the camera. MAN: Look at the camera.
WOMAN: Oh, now.
WOMAN: Oh, look, look, look, look, look.
MARIANA: Operations like Doc Antle's can generate revenues
of more than $1 million a year.
WOMAN: I love you. I love you.
DOC: People pay a premium price to visit the facility.
That price goes back towards operating the facility,
and then goes directly into the wild to support
conservation programs.
MARIANA: Specifically, he mentions their support for the
Soraya Forest Research Station in Sumatra, Indonesia.
DOC: We solely have built ranger stations deep in the jungles.
We pay the rangers salaries every day to walk the jungles,
to pick up deadly snares, to chase down poachers.
MARIANA: Cub petting is legal in the United States
if the facility is licensed by the USDA.
WOMAN: Oh, my gosh.
WOMAN: Oh.
MARIANA: But it is not allowed by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums,
which oversees highly regarded zoos, aquariums, and animal parks.
CARNEY ANNE: No reputable facility allows any human contact with big cats.
This is something that is only done by roadside zoos...
WOMAN: Oh, my God. So beautiful.
CARNEY ANNE: Magicians, circuses, and the industries
that profit off of the exploitation of big cats.
JOHN: I think that cub petting is an appalling way to get
people to care about tiger conservation,
because to do it, you have to keep breeding all of these cubs.
CARNEY ANNE: These cats are taken away from their mothers.
They're being handled and passed around.
WOMAN: Oh, he's not very happy.
CARNEY ANNE: All just to make a buck.
(howling).
♪ ♪
♪ La la la la la la la la la ♪
La la la la la la la la la ♪
DOC: They are ready for a snack.
MARIANA: A lot of animal experts would say that it's...
DOC: They're not experts. Okay. Go ahead.
MARIANA: A lot of people would say that petting cubs is an
abuse to animals.
How is that okay?
DOC: By hand‐raising the cubs, you create for those animals a
lifestyle where they're very peaceful about the world that they're in.
The cubs are out there for 20 minutes,
three times a week.
So they have one hour a week of interaction.
That's it, right?
Interaction with those cubs from an early life creates for
the animal an ability to have a bond with people.
His life is lifelong captive.
He will never be in the wild.
There's a deep confusion going on that is being pushed by
fake experts.
I am the only one qualified in this activity of raising cubs.
The people you're speaking about are fanatics, extremist fanatics.
You're speaking about someone who's wishes to push an agenda
as hard as Sharia law saying that Al Qaeda is an
expert on how to live.
Sharia law is correct, and we should all fall in.
Kind of like.
MARIANA: I think it's a huge stretch to compare animal rights activists to Al Qaeda.
DOC: It's not. Why do you think that?
You're fortifying the arguments of the enemy.
You're helping Al Qaeda sound like they maybe have merit.
CARNEY ANNE: I think that it doesn't pass the smell test to
suggest that people who are advocating for a more
humane world are, are Al‐Qaeda.
MARIANA: The bizarre story behind tiger keeper, Joe Exotic,
and his feud with animal rights activist, Carole Baskin.
GRACE: But I would like to know what happened to that husband?
MARIANA: Lost in the Tiger King‐ fueled melodrama
surrounding the disappearance of Carole's ex‐husband.
♪ Oh, here, kitty, kitty. ♪
MARIANA: Was an explanation of why tiger sanctuaries like
Big Cat Rescue actually exist.
CAROLE: People started calling and saying,
"Would you take my lion? Would you take my tiger?"
And so what I thought was going to be a very easy thing
to fix turned into a much bigger project.
MARIANA: Tiger owners in the U. S. have few places to turn
when their cute little cub grows into a 450‐pound alpha predator,
especially when it costs $10,000 a year to feed it.
So Doc Antle, when he was referring to Big Cat Rescue,
he called this place a scamtuary.
DOC: The sanctuary scamtuaries in the United States,
I feel, are an enormous drain to saving tigers.
MARIANA: What would you say to that?
CAROLE: I think people like him project their own failings
on those around them.
We saw that with Joe Exotic.
You know, he would constantly accuse me of things that
turned out he was doing.
MARIANA: When I started researching this story,
I was shocked to learn it's easier in the U. S.
to buy a tiger than to adopt a rescue dog.
That's because there's no overarching federal law
regulating tiger ownership.
But the Baskins would like to change that.
CAROLE: Our primary mission is to put ourselves out of business.
And the way we plan to do that is by changing the laws and
changing people's minds so that they don't want to see
these animals in cages.
MARIANA: In 2003, they helped pass a bill that made it
illegal for private owners to sell tigers across state lines.
HUFFMAN: It's important to remember that they're wild animals,
and they shouldn't be kept as pets or treated
like petting zoo animals.
MARIANA: And their latest lobbying effort is the Big Cat Public Safety Act.
CAROLE: The Big Cat Public Safety Act would ban the
private possession of big cats and it would stop the cub handling.
MARIANA: Doc Antle, on the other hand,
argues that new regulations are unnecessary.
DOC: This is the animal extremists' false narrative
that there are big cats being kept in apartment buildings
and hidden in backyards.
This just does not exist.
MARIANA: In the past decade, Antle's businesses have spent
over $1 million lobbying on proposed regulations on
captive wildlife and big cat issues,
including $390,000 to lobby against the Big Cat Public Safety Act.
CARNEY ANNE: Cubs can yield up to $1 million for roadside zoo
during their lifetime.
This is big money.
And this is why all the roadside zoos are so opposed
to the Big Cat Public Safety Act,
'cause it would virtually put a nail in the coffin for this
highly‐lucrative industry.
MARIANA: To shed more light on big cats in America,
I'm about to meet with someone who was once a part of Doc Antle's inner circle.
And that's you?
BARBARA: Uh‐hmm. MARIANA: Wow.
BARBARA: Uh‐hmm.
BARBARA: This was.
MARIANA: Oh, my God. This is you?
BARBARA: Yeah. My name when I was there was Bala.
MARIANA: Oh, you changed your name when you were there?
BARBARA: Uh‐hmm.
MARIANA: Did he make you change your name or what...
BARBARA: He didn't make me change, but if you were
in the inner circles, you had changed your name.
MARIANA: Hmm.
Barbara Fischer worked for Doc Antle for eight years
until leaving in 2007.
BARBARA: I was 19 years old, and I was just looking to run
away with the circus, if that makes any sense.
MARIANA: One of her primary jobs was raising tiger cubs.
Knowing what you know now, do you think that there should be
tiger cub petting happening in places where humans interact
with wild animals like tigers?
BARBARA: No. I'd say no.
Do we really need to domesticate tigers?
'Cause that's what's happening.
They're, they're, they're breeding them to domestication standards.
I mean, they're like dogs.
Bhagavan used to like say, "We need 1,000 arks to float
tigers into the next generation once their habitat
has been destroyed to try to rebuild it or whatever."
MARIANA: Uh‐hmm.
BARBARA: But those tigers that were bred for training are not
the same as wild tigers.
And he would say that himself.
MARIANA: Why is he breeding all these different kind of tigers?
BARBARA: For profit, because people like to see them.
MARIANA: One of the big things that your critics say is that
what you're doing here is breeding tigers for profit.
DOC: Breeding a tiger for profit is an idea of the uneducated.
Tigers can't be sold.
MARIANA: But you are making money with it as well.
DOC: What do you call make money?
You're, see, you're going back into this thing.
MARIANA: I mean, people coming here and,
and are paying $150 just to take photos.
DOC: Is there, is there, $500. But is there money left over?
No.
So am I making money? No.
MARIANA: Antle tells me that he contributes an undisclosed
amount to wildlife conservation programs every year,
but he claims that's only one of the benefits of his operation.
DOC: We're getting this incredible,
diversified genetics, and we're working towards the
healthiest, best tigers that can exist in the modern world.
Those tigers have babies to make that continue to happen.
MARIANA: I thought you were going to say,
"Look. Yes, we're, this is a business.
We're making money, and, but I don't think there's
anything wrong with breeding tigers,"
but instead you're telling me that
the reason you're doing it is for the...
DOC: Is to run the genetic programs.
If you don't do something like what we're working on,
there's no hope.
There must be a bank of tigers that can go towards the future.
MARIANA: Conservationists I spoke with disagree with
Antle's argument.
They say Antle's hybrid domesticated tigers could
never replace a wild tiger.
JOHN: A lot of these petting zoos claim that they are
preventing the extinction of tigers by maintaining these
captive populations, but those captive tigers will never go
back into the wild, so what's the point?
CARNEY ANNE: Breeders like Joe Exotic and Doc Antle are
creating animals who don't exist in the wild.
White tigers are not a separate subspecies.
They're actually inbred, yet exhibitors like Doc have
acknowledged that they like to breed them because
they're more interesting.
They're crowd‐pleasers.
BARBARA: People think they're seeing some rare thing, you know?
A royal white Bengal tiger, snow white tiger.
These are so rare, there's only 10 in captivity.
I mean, we remember saying stuff like that.
People definitely would rather have contact with that tiger
than just a plain old tiger that's just orange and black.
MARIANA: Antle argues that wild tigers and captive tigers
are virtually the same thing.
DOC: The, the few large tiger parks that exist are
completely inundated with people.
So, there is no real wild that tigers are living in.
All tigers are essentially captive,
and it is probably all we have left.
MARIANA: One of the big questions that people have is
what happens when the tigers are no longer cubs?
They can't be petted anymore.
DOC: They only go to accredited facilities or to
facilities that we have a direct relationship with.
MARIANA: Can you tell me some of those facilities,
the names of those facilities that you've sent tigers to before?
DOC: You understand that if I tell you their names,
the animal extremists will use that as a mailing campaign to
attack that place.
MARIANA: Okay.
So one place that has been reported about is a,
a facility in Thailand called Samut Prakan.
DOC: Yes.
I took seven of my tigers. I put them together.
And we flew to Thailand.
We hand‐delivered them to the facility.
It's beautiful.
Great big open habitats, far exceeding American zoological standards.
MARIANA: In 2019, National Geographic Magazine wrote an article
that described animal abuse at wildlife parks around the world,
including Samut Prakan.
And you concerned at all that the, the tigers
that you are breeding here are ending up at
facilities with terrible conditions for animals?
DOC: Your colleague's lying.
I've been to the facility a half a dozen times.
The facility is not state‐of‐the‐art American facility,
but far worse conditions exist in Florida today.
You've got, you've got an animal extremist right there
who probably holds a chicken sandwich in one hand and makes
his decisions in the other.
That person is Al Qaeda to the max that put that article together.
MARIANA: I had a hunch he'd say that,
which is why I want to see Samut Prakan for myself.
♪ ♪
MARIANA: In 2005, Doc Antle transferred seven tigers from
Myrtle Beach Safari in South Carolina to Samut Prakan.
MAN: Yes. MARIANA: There you go.
(applause).
MAN: Okay.
MARIANA: We walk around the zoo pretending we're tourists
so we can get a true sense of what it's like.
Samut Prakan does not appear to be what Doc describes at all.
There's a little cub right here in a cage.
Five, six‐weeks‐old, more or less.
I have to smile 'cause the guy is looking at me all the time,
but it's a tiny cage.
And he's just walking back and forth.
Look at that.
Soon after I enter, I'm greeted by a tiger,
chained to the ground so that tourists can take photos.
I pose for a photo so that we can film the tiger without
raising suspicion.
ZOOKEEPER: Camera! One, two, three.
MARIANA: Okay. ZOOKEEPER: Okay.
(snarling).
MARIANA: Oh. Oh, my God.
That was really disturbing.
All so that you can have a photo with a tiger, you know?
As I walk further into the zoo,
I see tigers pacing in small cages.
To my untrained eye, the conditions at the zoo look deplorable.
CARNEY ANNE: Tigers are complex, apex predators.
And in the wild, they have home ranges of up to
hundreds of square miles.
Any reputable sanctuaries provide naturalistic habitats.
They would never chain an animal.
They would never use negative reinforcement or physical abuse.
They would never allow public contact.
And they provide a refuge to these animals for life.
MARIANA: One, two, three, four, five, six.
I see six tigers in a really small enclosure.
This is about the size of a basketball court.
The sun is right on them, and it's really hot.
It's 90 something degrees.
It's really, really sad.
We don't know exactly how big this tiger enclosure is,
and Samut Prakan did not respond to our request for comments.
DOC: It's beautiful great big open habitats far exceeding
American zoological standards.
MARIANA: Doc Antle also did not respond to follow‐up
questions after my visit to Samut Prakan.
Back in America, he's facing serious allegations.
On October 8, 2020, the State of Virginia indicted Doc Antle
on 15 charges including Wildlife Trafficking and Animal Cruelty.
The felony charges alleged that Antle trafficked lion
cubs between South Carolina and Virginia.
DOC: I categorically deny any animal cruelty ever.
I spend my entire life promoting the welfare and
conservation of big cats and other species.
MARIANA: His trial is pending.
As for the "Tiger King" himself, his final thoughts surprised me.
JOE (over phone): But my whole outlook on animals being in captivity
since I've been in jail has changed.
If I would have known 20 years ago what life inside a cage is like,
I would never have had a zoo.
It doesn't matter if it's a tiger or a gerbil,
no animal belongs in a cage.
MARIANA: However, it will take a lot more than Joe Exotic's
change of heart to save the world's wild tigers.
JOHN: The situation for tigers on this planet absolutely is not hopeless.
We know how to protect tigers in the wild.
All you need to do is lock down protected areas,
protect the tigers from poaching,
protect them from habitat loss,
and tigers in those protected areas will thrive.
MARIANA: Consumers on both sides of the globe will have
to ask themselves some hard questions.
But what other choice do we have?
TIM: You know, you, you talk to kids and,
and you ask them, "What's your favorite animal,"
and most say tigers.
And if we can't preserve such a charismatic species as a tiger,
we can't preserve anything.
Captioned by Cotter Captioning Services.