While on your Coronavirus “vacation,” you should watch the new Netflix documentary about tigers. Called Tiger King, the show is a documentary about Joe Exotic and his tigers, rivals, and friends. While he may not be the only main character, he is in many people’s opinions the most interesting. He was arguably the person that made big cat shows popular, tried to kill his rival, and had thousands of fans as well as enemies.

  The show is about Joe Exotic, Carole Baskins, and a couple other breeders. The first few episodes are mainly explaining the backstories of the people including rumors of murder, false accusations of mistreatment of the animals, and much more. The next few episodes explain how it ended, the story of the assasination plot, and what happened in the finish. Joe Exotic and Carole Baskins are both tiger breeders, but for different reasons. Exotic wanted to make money and breed the tigers so he can attract more people. Baskins was a big cat enthusiast, who wanted to stop the decreasing populations and save tigers especially. They both fought for years and lived very different lifestyles. 

  Joe Exotic started his big cat show when he bought two abandoned tigers. He continued acquiring big cats throughout the years and also had to raise horses just to shoot them for food for the tigers. He started the zoo in memory of his brother who died in a car crash in the 1990s. He kept the tigers in large enclosures, kept them well-fed, and made sure they were well-kept every day, but some people did not like the way he kept his cats. Carole Baskin, a fellow big cat sanctuary owner, tried for years to ruin Joe Exotic’s zoo, life, and his employee’s jobs. She teamed up with animal activists to try and spy on Joe and sent police and issued complaints throughout the years. Freshman Noah Cutler said, “I think Baskins was very unfair to Joe Exotic because she had the exact same kind of programs running, but she still tried to take down Joe.” 

  Even though Baskins was an animal enthusiast, if you watch the documentary, Joe Exotic made some good points about her cages and enclosures. They were not well kept, and the way the tigers had to go into small cages just to get food and water was not very healthy. She said that the way he kept his animals was very dangerous, unhealthy, and a violation of the tigers’ rights even though her cages were even smaller. Both people have had tension ever since they started. It is hard to say exactly why they hate each other so much, but it got to the point that Joe Exotic tried to kill Carole Baskins. On September 18, 2017, Joe hired someone to shoot and kill her, but the person he “hired” was an undercover FBI agent. Joe was convicted of attempted murder and multiple wildlife charges after killing multiple tigers and was sent to prison for twenty-two years.

  All in all, the documentary is worth watching. It completely captures Joe’s hard backstory, Carole’s passion to end his career, and even a few more tiger breeders that have even weirder methods of life. It is a fun, yet, serious documentary about the hardships of their lives, the murder, and accidents that lead to Joes incarceration.