Before he became Tiger King, Joe Exotic desperately tried his hand at becoming the 'Wolf King' in 2018
It has now emerged that Joe Exotic had desperately tried his hand at being a "Wolf King" before he came to be known to the world as the Tiger King. However, his erstwhile bid to rule the wolves lasted a very short period of time.
According to TMZ, Joe Exotic -- full name Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage -- acquired 28 gray wolves in early 2018 after a certain "petting zoo" in Minneapolis was forced to give up the animals due to a court ruling that they had violated the federal Endangered Species Act.
The lawsuit was backed by the Animal Legal Defense Fund, which soon caught up with Joe and had him in its crosshairs.
In a conversation with the tabloid outlet, Christopher Berry, the ALDF attorney behind the lawsuit, revealed how he fired off a legal letter to Joe alleging he had also violated the same law. According to the letter, Joe had allegedly violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by transporting the wolves from Minnesota to Oklahoma. Berry said the violation stuck because it's against federal law to transport protected animals across state lines without a permit.
Furthermore, the ALDF also accused Joe of attempting to sell protected animals -- with Berry pointing out in the letter that the commercial sale of a protected animal also violated federal law. According to him, Joe had tried to sell at least four wolf pups on social media.
But while Berry offered to resolve the issue amicably, it apparently did not sit well with Joe. Few days after receiving the letter, Joe called Berry and launched a profanity-laced rant denying he ever broke any laws.
However, Joe eventually admitted that trying to get a grip over wolves was way more challenging than he previously thought, according to TMZ. There were several instances that brought Joe to that conclusion, one of them being the wolves often clawed out of their enclosures and ran amok his G.W. Exotic Animal Park, and it was difficult to get them back.
And so Joe ultimately gave up the wolves, handing them over to Lockwood Animal Rescue Center, an animal protection organization based in Ventura, California. Following that, the ALDF decided to take no further legal action against the future Tiger King.
But how did Joe's facility get selected to receive the wolves in the first place?
Berry told TMZ that the aforementioned petting zoo in Minnesota was desperate to find new homes for the 60 wolves they possessed. However, they sent 28 of them to Joe, who was obviously not equipped enough to take care of them.
It gets worse. Berry told the outlet that only 25 of the 28 wolves that Joe's facility took in were transferred to Lockwood. According to him, one of the wolves died from an infection at Joe's park, while the other two went missing and no one ever came to figure what happened to them.
Having said that, Joe's alleged callousness towards animals may not be news for those following the Tiger King saga, considering he has been accused of a number of heinous acts against wildlife.