GW Exotic Animal Park (Closed) GW Animal Park Discussion

There is also the fiasco of Walmart stopping to give meat handouts. Joe and his crew is now begging for donations or else their irresponsibly over-bred will be killed (and act like it's Walmart's fault).

I'm all for the private trade and I don't like big cat rescue (for personal reasons). However What Jeff and Joe are doing not only hurts the private exotic trade but it hurts the trade of animals as a whole (if I am not exaggerating). It's as if PETA and the HSUS pays them to be themselves. I really hope these tho "men" will face their judgement.

Also this page (while not so mature,) might push you deeper into the GW rabbit hole: GW Zoo Watchdogs .
 
I hadn't gotten around to looking up Jeff Lowe yet, but he's listed as the CEO. That's really disturbing. Joe used to travel the country with tiger cubs, doing "tigers in need" presentations at malls where people could pet cubs. He's was on the road 40 weeks a year... yet produced just 7 cubs a year, according to him.

That video. I didn't bother to watch any of his other videos and I think that was a good idea. I can't stand the way he talks/postures. There's so, so much wrong in that video, from the treatment of the animals to the half naked women, the things he says about others, his ego...
 
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I am surprised they - the authorities - have not yet closed the place down.
Not that this is likely under the current Trumpian regime.
 
Kifaru Bwana said:
I am surprised they - the authorities - have not yet closed the place down.
Not that this is likely under the current Trumpian regime.
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I am, too. Though Joe threatened to go "Waco" if they tried to take the animals, but if he's no longer involved...
 
Kifaru Bwana said:
I am surprised they - the authorities - have not yet closed the place down.
Not that this is likely under the current Trumpian regime.
Click to expand...

Sadly I am not surprised. Oklahoma has some of the least progressive animal welfare laws in the country. Additionally, state and federal authorities in the United States are always slow to act on irresponsible zoos like this one; investigations are often infrequent, and they normally just result in slap-on-the-wrist citations... and it's been that way under every federal administration (most animal-related laws in the US are state laws anyway, although the USDA is a federal agency). Roadside zoos are more liable to close due to lack of profit than legal justice.
 
I've been to the gw zoo and want to addess one or two things that didn't go over well with me you guys missed about Joe and his zoo.

-Throughout the zoo he has screens playing his music videos, in one of them is footage of him doing cpr on and burying a dead chimpanzee (It was very graffic, these are things you do not show people).

-He has a tv series he made about his zoo (similar to what the Bronx has, and I regret buying it but curiosity got the better of me), and in it it's revealed that many of his staff have serious drug problems. Something about knowing BIG CAT keepers are under the influence of some heavy duty drugs doesn't make me feel safe in or around that place. I also remember watching them smoke without any concern towards the animals around them which surprised me quite a bit (If they want to smoke that's their choice, but don't do it near the animals)

-He guides his tours himself (when he can) and some of what gems he said to us (the crowd) include- "All big cats descended from the sabre toothed tiger" -"The AZA is like a rich country club"- Something along the lines of "I can breed lions and tigers from our hybrids and everyone will thank me when they go extinct and I save them"- Then he proceeded to threaten anyone willing to mess with him or his animals, revealing the gun in his belt (as if the signs threatening eveyone around the zoo weren't enough) and made a poorly received from the crowd suicide joke about a guy who tried to kill himself jumping into the tiger cages.

-I happened to be going during his campaigning for president period and it was obnoxious to say the least.

-If he suspects you of being a peta "spy" or something along those lines he will kick you out (He did this several times on his YouTube).

-I don't know if this was mentioned here, but I had read an article about him throwing tiger king brand condoms to guests in his tours.

-He frequently jumps in the enclosures or reaches in to pet the tigers, talking about how they are nothing but big tabby cats. This gives a horrible idea to guests about tigers, and opens him up to some serious liability issues should a kid try to repeat that and not be able to retrieve their arm.
 
Joe Exotic is no longer affiliated with the zoo, it is now being run completely by Jeff Lowe and his new wife. There's a lot of stuff going on that I don't want to share until I see 100% confirmation yet, but everything Joe is being scrubbed from the park, obviously, there have been some upgrades to cages, and a lot of animals have left the park.
 
Possibly at first, but to make a comparison, Lowe is Pence to Joe Exotics's Trump - cleaner cut and a nbetter speaker (relatively), says some nice stuff, but ultimately he's just as bad in terms of animal care and has a long history of bad behavior involving animals.
 
He claims he's going to be making a lot of positive changes, but right now they're just words. I've attached a photo of a receipt for ligers sold to Woody's Menagerie, which tours with them but also possibly sells animals to canned hunts; several of the animals are already missing. This camel came from the zoo, as well: Camel now at famed truck stop outside Baton Rouge, but owner in fierce fight for another tiger
There's also still lots of litters of tiger cubs being born.
 

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EsserWarrior said:
Do you think that will make a major change in the way the zoo functions in the zoo community?
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To be fair the "modern zoos" won't really be affected because of how they distance themselves from the rest of the private trade and the way the AZA is in cahoots in the US. The ones who will be hurt by the actions of GW park most are private owners since they are low hanging fruit. They might sadly seem like a minority, but there are people who keep non-conventional exotics (or used to) that oppose the actions of Joe and GW park.
 
PossumRoach said:
To be fair the "modern zoos" won't really be affected because of how they distance themselves from the rest of the private trade and the way the AZA is in cahoots in the US. The ones who will be hurt by the actions of GW park most are private owners since they are low hanging fruit. They might sadly seem like a minority, but there are people who keep non-conventional exotics (or used to) that oppose the actions of Joe and GW park.
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Oh dang I mispelled HSUS as the US. It's too late now...
 
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