Tiger King's Carole Baskin Is Bringing Her Big Cats to the Ozarks

Hey all you cool cats and kittens, Carole Baskin, the controversial figure from the hit Netflix docuseries Tiger King, is closing down her cat sanctuary, Big Cat Rescue, to merge with Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge in the Ozarks.

It's good news if you like big cats (or if you have an ex-husband's corpse you need to dispose of).

Baskin will be selling her 67-acre Tampa rescue and transporting 35 of her 41 big cats to Eureka Springs in Arkansas, just an hour outside of Branson. Howard Baskin, co-owner of the operation, said one reason for the move was operational costs.

The impact of Tiger King also didn't help Big Cat Rescue, which had stopped public tours due to the "double punch of COVID-19 and the negative impact of Tiger King," according to the Springfield News-Leader.

The docuseries followed the batshit crazy feuds and interactions between big cat private zookeepers with a particular focus on Joe "Exotic" Maldonado-Passage, who hired hitmen to kill Carole Baskin. (He's currently in prison for that.) Maldonado-Passage also said that Baskin killed her ex-husband and fed his body to tigers. Baskin's ex-husband, Don Lewis, disappeared in 1997.

A third and final reason is Congress passing the Big Cat Public Safety Act late last year, which shut down cub petting. In Tiger King, many of the roadside zoos featured were set up as cub-petting attractions. Baskin worked to get the legislation passed, but such cub-petting zoos were a source for her rescue for abused cats.

For the move, Big Cat Rescue is spending nearly $2 million building new enclosures for its cats on Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge, which is 400 acres. The refuge has been rescuing abused big cats for 30 years.

Baskin's cats could start arriving as early as June. In addition to appearing on Tiger King, Baskin was also on ABC's Dancing with the Stars.

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