{"id":444841,"date":"2025-09-23T03:54:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T03:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/444841\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T03:54:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T03:54:14","slug":"tiger-kills-its-keeper-at-controversial-wildlife-preserve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/444841\/","title":{"rendered":"Tiger Kills its Keeper at Controversial Wildlife Preserve"},"content":{"rendered":"

A big cat trainer was killed by a tiger at a preserve which was previously accused of misconduct by animal rights activists. Ryan Easley was involved in an \u201cact\u201d with the tiger at the Growler Pines Tiger Preserve in Hugo, Oklahoma, when it turned on him, Choctaw County Sheriff said. Easley, 37, was not breathing when sheriff\u2019s deputies arrived, KXII<\/a> reported. The preserve paid tribute in a Facebook post, saying, \u201cThis tragedy is a painful reminder of both the beauty and unpredictability of the natural world. The animals under his care were not just animals to him, but beings he formed a connection with.\u201d However, animal rights group PETA<\/a> alleged a darker background to the tragedy. It said it had complained about conditions for the tigers at the preserve in 2017, alleging they were caged unnecessarily and were stressed. The group also alleged Easley had obtained his tigers from infamous animal trainers Joseph \u201cJoe Exotic\u201d Maldonado from the eponymous Netflix show and convicted wildlife trafficker Bhagavan Mahamayavi \u201cDoc\u201d Antle. The Oklahoman<\/a> reported Exotic\u2014who despite being behind bars appears to have access to his social media accounts\u2014initially posted a warm tribute to Easley, saying, \u201cPrayers go out to his family. Ryan took great care of his animals!\u201d But as accusations of misconduct surfaced, Exotic then denied anything to do with the tragedy, posting, \u201cI had nothing to do with this dude other than 18 years ago I let him keep his tigers at my zoo for one winter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read it at The Oklahoman<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A big cat trainer was killed by a tiger at a preserve which was previously accused of misconduct…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3847],"tags":[24408,3951,70,150074,16,15,1717],"class_list":{"0":"post-444841","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animal-welfare","9":"tag-joe-exotic","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-tiger-king","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115251594306165541","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}