A tiger handler linked to “Tiger King” Joe Exotic was killed Saturday by one of many huge cats at the Oklahoma preserve the place he labored, in accordance to the ability.
Ryan Easley “lost his life in an accident involving a tiger under his care,” the Growler Pines Tiger Preserve mentioned in a statement posted to Facebook.
“This tragedy is a painful reminder of both the beauty and unpredictability of the natural world. Ryan understood those risks — not out of recklessness but out of love,” it mentioned.
Describing Easley as “a passionate advocate for wildlife conservation,” Growler Pines mentioned he had devoted his life to defending and caring for giant cats.
The Hugo, Oklahoma, facility was established as ShowMe Tigers — Easley’s touring huge cat present — elevated its concentrate on conservation and seemed for a everlasting house the place guests may find out about its retired circus animals, in accordance to the Growler Pines web site.
Easley was attacked throughout an act with a tiger at Growler Pines and was not respiration when deputies arrived, NCS affiliate KXII mentioned, citing the Choctaw County Sheriff.
Animal rights teams reacted to information of Easley’s loss of life with calls to finish the usage of wild animals in performances.
One of its investigators had spent weeks undercover working and touring with ShowMe Tigers, watching the animals being pressured to carry out methods, mentioned Humane World for Animals, previously known as the Humane Society of the United States, in a press release Sunday.
“Ryan Easley’s death was a sad and preventable tragedy,” the group mentioned.
PETA mentioned Easley had gotten his tigers from Joseph Maldonado, popularly often called Joe Exotic, and Bhagavan ‘Doc’ Antle, each of whom appeared within the Netflix collection “Tiger King.” The tigers had boarded at Joe Exotic’s zoo in winter when not touring, it mentioned in a statement on Easley’s death Sunday.
Joe Exotic — whose actual title is Joe Maldonado — expressed his condolences on social media after Easley’s loss of life, the Oklahoman reported. “Prayers go out to his family,” it quoted him as saying. “Ryan took great care of his animals! He loved everyone of those tigers and was an advocate for tigers as well as elephants.” The Oklahoman mentioned the posts have been later faraway from Instagram and Facebook.
There have been quite a few assaults by captive huge cats in recent times, together with a fatal tiger attack on a keeper at the Palm Beach Zoo in 2016 and one other by a lion at a North California animal sanctuary in 2013.
In 2007, an escaped Siberian tiger attacked and killed one zoo patron and injured two others in a restaurant at the San Francisco Zoo.