A tiger handler linked to “Tiger King” Joe Exotic was killed Saturday by one of many huge cats on the Oklahoma protect the place he labored, in accordance to the power.
Ryan Easley “lost his life in an accident involving a tiger under his care,” the Growler Pines Tiger Preserve stated 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 stated.
Describing Easley as “a passionate advocate for wildlife conservation,” Growler Pines stated he had devoted his life to defending and caring for large cats.
The Hugo, Oklahoma, facility was established as ShowMe Tigers — Easley’s touring huge cat present — elevated its deal with conservation and appeared 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 respiratory when deputies arrived, NCS affiliate KXII stated, citing the Choctaw County Sheriff.
Animal rights teams reacted to information of Easley’s demise 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 tips, stated Humane World for Animals, previously known as the Humane Society of the United States, in an announcement Sunday.
“Ryan Easley’s death was a sad and preventable tragedy,” the group stated.
PETA stated Easley had gotten his tigers from Joseph Maldonado, popularly often called Joe Exotic, and Bhagavan ‘Doc’ Antle, each of whom appeared within the Netflix sequence “Tiger King.” The tigers had boarded at Joe Exotic’s zoo in winter when not touring, it stated 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 demise, 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 stated the posts have been later faraway from Instagram and Facebook.
There have been quite a lot of assaults by captive huge cats lately, 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 on the San Francisco Zoo.
NCS’s Amanda Jackson contributed to this report.
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