
"When people see Carole Baskin's Cage Fight, that's who I really am.
Carol baskin series#
Currently, Big Cat Rescue is home to more than 80 lions, tigers, bobcats, cougars, and other species.Īs Tiger King 2 hits Netflix, Baskin is focusing on her own two-part Discovery+ documentary series Carole Baskin's Cage Fight, which she believes more accurately illustrates her mission and advocacy. The mission remains the same: "to provide the best home we can for the cats in our care, end abuse of big cats in captivity, and prevent extinction of big cats in the wild." Along with her husband Howard Baskin, she works with animal rights organizations like PETA to end the private ownership of big cats, a.k.a. Wildlife on Easy Street, the sanctuary that Baskin started with her late husband, evolved into Big Cat Rescue. Following his arrest in 2018, he was later sentenced to 22 years in prison for a murder-for-hire scheme, as well as violating the Endangered Species Act for killing five tigers in 2017. Shortly after, Exotic posted public threats against Baskin on Facebook and YouTube, eventually leading him to promise to pay an undercover FBI agent $3,000 for her death in November 2017. Things took a turn in 2011 when Baskin secured a million-dollar judgment against Exotic and his exotic animal park. At one point, Exotic even made an entire music video to a song aptly named "Here Kitty Kitty," which focused on the rumors surrounding Baskin's husband's disappearance. Exotic, for starters, believed that it was important for the public to interact with baby lions and tigers to get a better appreciation for the exotic animals Baskin clearly disagreed.

I’m amazed that people would even think such a thing." He was officially declared to be dead in 2002.īut Baskin's story doesn't stop there: She spent the last two decades embroiled with Exotic over their different views on big cat care. "There would be bones and remains of my husband out there.


"We were upset that the cops didn’t test the DNA on the meat grinder." To this day, Baskin maintains her innocence: "My tigers eat meat they don’t eat people," she told People. "It’s a perfect scenario to dispose of someone," his oldest child, Donna Pettis, told People in 1998. Lewis' children even speculate that Baskin may have fed him to her tigers. While Baskin cooperated with police, they were left without any answers - yet his children (and now many Netflix viewers) speculate that Baskin was involved in his disappearance.

Then Lewis, who at the time was regularly making solo trips to Costa Rica, vanished without a trace on August 18, 1997. During their first few years of marriage, Baskin's interest in big cats blossomed, and the two turned a 40 acre plot of land into Wildlife on Easy Street, a big cat sanctuary that eventually housed 200 cats of 17 species in the late 1990s. Ten years later, Lewis left his wife and children, and married Baskin. Who is Carole Baskin?Īt 19 years old, Baskin met Tampa millionaire Don Lewis. Here's everything you need to know about Baskin's story, where she is now, and what she has to say about the Netflix docuseries. The follow-up to last year's hit docuseries addresses the curious case of Don Lewis in more detail, despite Baskin suing Netflix in attempt to bar the streaming service from "any use of film footage of the Baskins and the Big Cat Rescue sanctuary in Tiger King 2 or in any related promotion or advertising." (Netflix and Royal Goode Productions have called for the claim to be denied.) which is where Tiger King season 2 comes in. While the seven-episode series explored Baskin and Exotic's wild world in the big cat industry, there's still so much left to uncover.
