You’ve been watching Netflix’s Tiger King documentary—that dizzying chronicle of America’s cruel breeders of big cats—and have no doubt marveled at the tragedy of its human characters. These are, after all, truly busted people like Joe Exotic, who in the series wears leather fringe unironically and breeds tigers under deplorable conditions at the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park in Oklahoma, where visitors can hold baby tigers for a fee (of course) and take selfies (also of course).
The interpersonal drama between the human characters of Tiger King—including an attempted murder for hire—can distract from the real tiger tragedy: These magnificent creatures will never know anything but a cage. Tigers in the wild may roam a range of 100 square miles. But animal advocates say that in non-accredited roadside zoos, they may be packed together in tiny cages and forced to fight over food. (Both were true in the case of Joe Exotic’s animal park, where the Netflix series shows the tigers being fed expired meat from Walmart.)
Breeders of big cats sometimes say they’re doing it so populations can be maintained in captivity, in case the animals go extinct in the wild. But animal advocates say this is the reddest of red herrings. “The tigers that they’re producing are worthless for the wild,” says John