Exotic animal conservation game exposed in new documentary

MYSTERY WIRE — Exotic animals are a staple of TV talk shows. For decades, celebrity conservationists have made a handsome living by exhibiting and playing with baby tigers or lions or other species.

But what happens to those animals once they’re off camera?

INVESTIGATING ANIMAL AMBASSADORS

The small fraternity of celebrity conservationists understand the power of a baby tiger when shown on TV.

Exotic and often endangered species are billed as “animal ambassadors”,  supposedly appearing on the airwaves to raise public awareness of their plight. But what happens to the animals after the lights are off and they get older is where the investigation gets wild.

“There’s no transparency,” law professor and lawyer Carney Anne Nasser, who is in the film, told Mystery Wire. “Everybody is feeding a bunch of lies about where the animals come from, where they go. And it is shocking, because there’s a certain amount of betrayal of public trust by individuals who have built reputations on the theory that they’re doing conservation work, when the reality is, they’re working with backyard breeders, they’re working with roadside zoos, and they’re just turning these animals around like a revolving door.

Nasser is part of the new documentary “The Conservation Game” and hopes it will expose the exploitation and disposal of animals that are used as props on TV talk shows.

Investigators tracked down the reality of what happens to animal ambassadors after their moment of TV fame is over. “These individuals who are trying to tell us that they’re holding and showing you a critically endangered animal that’s deserving of our protection and conservation can’t or won’t tell you what they do with that animal when they’re done with it,” Nasser said.

Roadside zoos appear to be a favorite dumping ground according to Nasser. “They’re ending up in other entertainment or they’re ending up completely, vanishing into thin air.”

CHANGES ARE HAPPENING

The project is already having an effect even before the public has seen it.

“The Columbus Zoo, and Senator Portman from Ohio have gotten on board with support for the Big Cat Public Safety Act after many years of being holdouts,” Nasser said. “It’s an important turn of events because Jack Hanna’s lack of support for the Big Cat Public Safety Act was one of the main reasons that a lot of legislators wouldn’t support it either.”

But this changed after Jack Hanna stepped away from his relationship with the Columbus Zoo, and the zoo separated itself from Hanna and other celebrities who appear with animals on TV shows.

The Big Cat Public Safety Act gained support and was introduced in the Senate, but was left untouched when the legislative session ended.

When asked what real affect the bill would have, assuming it was enforced, Nasser said, “Public contact opportunities will be completely illegal in all 50 states. And the private ownership of big cats will be prohibited. There’s a grandfather clause. So it’s not like the feds are going to go in and take anybody’s pet tiger if they already have one. It’s going to grandfather that in. But it will phase out the private ownership. And that’s the dumping ground for these animals. Once they’re done being used for public contact and cub petting, then they get dumped into the exotic pet trade. And so it’s really tackling the problem at its genesis, and then at the end, to hopefully get out in front of this issue of a surplus of these tigers in the United States, where we don’t know where they’re going, where they’re ending up, where they’re coming from, how they’re being treated or housed. It’s a public safety problem. We just saw three tigers in suburban neighborhoods in Texas in three months, out on the town.”

One of the most notorious person flaunting the law is Karl Mitchell of Pahrump, NV. Mitchell has been cited dozens of times for violating the most basic animal care standards. He had his license revoked by the federal government but still manages to make money off of the animals he keeps in his backyard.

Nasser said that Mitchell “has continued even as recently as last year, when he was caught exhibiting animals without a license from both the city of Las Vegas and the US Department of Agriculture, at the Artisan Hotel on the strip, and what is so offensive about that is that he had been hired in order to help generate money that was going to be used to combat and help investigate wildlife crimes. How outrageous is that?”

As of May 2020 Nye County officials said Mitchell had close to a dozen tigers in the compound he uses. Mitchell says the cats are his therapy animals to help with his PTSD.

Last year, the issue of owning roadside zoos and exotic big cats became headline news when the Netflix series “Tiger King” aired. It featured Joe Exotic, the man who is now serving time in federal prison for wildlife trafficking and other endangered species crimes.

“The Conservation Game” features Joe Exotic’s nemesis, Carol Baskin and her husband. Baskin is a big-cat rights activist and CEO of Big Cat Rescue, a non-profit animal sanctuary in Florida. In “Tiger King” Joe Exotic accused her of killing her late husband Don Lewis and then feeding him to the tigers. Baskin maintains this never happened.

The film debuts September 8^th and there are several premier locations. The producers expect it to forever change the exploitation of exotic animals by TV celebrities.

RELATED: The Conservation Game home page

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George Knapp   
Carney, you saw the comparisons that some people have made to Blackfish and The Cove, The Conservation Game is in that league in terms of being a hard hitting film.

Carney Anne Nasser 
It is very hard hitting film as tells the truth about what happens to big cats used on day shows and night shows and us as animal ambassadors,

George Knapp  
Can you give me an idea of the origin of this pursuit? Just sitting at home watching these guys and wondering what happens to the animals? Is that how … see him on television holding a cute little kitten or some sort or cub and wondering what happens to those animals? Is that how it all started?

Carney Anne Nasser  
It started actually when Michael Weber was making his first documentary about wildlife and the exotic pets in America. And that documentary was called The Elephant in the Living Room. He worked with Tim Harrison, who’s also featured in The Conservation Game. And in the course of their work on that film, they attended an exotic animal auction undercover. And at that auction, they saw a number of people who were on TV as alleged celebrity conservationists. And that was the genesis of their curiosity. And that ultimately became The Conservation Game.

George Knapp
That animal auction, what a weird world that is. The intersection of all these strange characters selling all these different kinds of exotic animals.

Carney Anne Nasser  
Yeah, I mean, Russ Muntz who accompanied Tim Harrison to those auctions, he said that it was … could not get any weirder than that. And if there was a hell for animals, it would be at those exotic animal auctions.

George Knapp   
Were they surprised at the investigation, you and them surprised as the investigation goes on that pretty much all of these animals, celebrities, these celebrity conservationists are on TV are doing the same thing.

Carney Anne Nasser
There’s no transparency, everybody is feeding a bunch of lies about where the animals come from, where they go. And it is shocking, because there’s a certain amount of betrayal of public trust by individuals who have built reputations on the theory that they’re doing conservation work, when the reality is, they’re working with backyard breeders, they’re working with roadside zoos, and they’re just turning these animals around like a revolving door.

George Knapp  
There’s a certain level of obscenity to the whole thing, when you are making a living and making your name based on these animals and presenting them as animal ambassadors. They’re here to educate the public so we can save their species and care for the animals. And then they’re tossed.

Carney Anne Nasser 
Exactly, you know, it really is grotesque. And it’s offensive. You know, as somebody who works in the field, and people, even the hosts of these shows, many of them care about animal issues. Some of them participate in Humane Society events, and donors and everything. And to have somebody come on TV, under the theory of promoting awareness about how endangered a snow leopard is, after which they’re just going to dump that animal who may be dead within two years, or who may disappear entirely. It’s such a hypocrisy.

George Knapp 
That’s the heart of the film is the detective work that goes into and it’s really, it’s excruciatingly detailed detective work that tracks down all of these different individual animals, where they came from, and where they went and in between how they were handled by these celebrity conservationists. Right?

Carney Anne Nasser 
Yes, it’s really an investigation to try to figure out what is the path of these animals who are being used on television shows. And are they really coming from where these people say they are. And we found that these animals are being tossed around, traded around like baseball cards, and then just disappearing into the ether. 

George Knapp 
Give me an example, pick out an animal, one of the ones that’s featured in the film, we can’t show the film. So maybe you tell us the story.

Carney Anne Nasser  
There are a number of tigers who are used on these television shows and the celebrity conservationists say this tiger, Wyatt, you know, was at a zoo as part of a conservation program, when the reality is that tiger at the same time is going to be used as a high school mascot at a football game where he’s trucked out onto a field in roaring applause and then dumped in a roadside zoo. So that’s, I mean, that’s just one example. There’s a tiger named Olive. She was used by Dave Salmoni on the Today Show, and then used as a mascot for the Massillon Tigers, OB number 47, a high school in Ohio that uses tiger cubs, or used to use tiger cubs up until recently they announced that that live mascot program was finally over. But that was an animal who they said was at a wonderful facility. And this animal in the reality was just being passed around from one exhibition to another. And another example are two snow leopards named Sven and Olaf who Jack Hanna had. And George Stephanopoulos like astutely, as many of these hosts asked astute questions. This one seems scared. Where’s their mom? When did their eyes open? I mean, these are all questions like that are good questions. And what ends up happening is you see this parade of lies in response to these questions.

George Knapp 
Like what? What do they say? What are the excuses they give?

Carney Anne Nasser  
They’ll say that the animal in one case, Jack Hanna said that the animal was eight weeks old when the animal is only five weeks old. Because it’s a well known industry standard that these animals should not be subjected, these immunocompromised neonatal cubs, should not be subjected to an experience on a television show and public handling. When they haven’t had their vaccinations, when they should still be with their mothers in a quiet dark environment. It’s a total violation of industry standards. That’s one example.

George Knapp 
Jack Hanna is sort of an institution, he’s known everywhere. Millions of people know him. He’s the guy that comes on to these shows these talk shows and brings a cute little whatever. Doesn’t that work? Doesn’t it work in a sense of spreading the message that these are unique animals and they need to be preserved and we should all care for them.

Carney Anne Nasser 
No, it doesn’t send that message. In reality the studies show even within the Association of Zoos and Aquariums own experts, Dr. Steve Ross at the Lincoln Park Zoo has done incredible research with chimpanzees. And he has found that when you present an animal in an unnatural setting in an unnatural behavior, that it sends a false message that these animals are just here for our whims to be used as we pleased, and it diminishes public interest in legitimate conservation. On top of that, it is such a hypocrisy to suggest that there’s ever an excuse to exploit an animal particularly in the name of alleged conservation.

George Knapp  
What happens inevitably, and I find myself thinking the same thing, I’ve heard my wife say it too, you see a baby tiger on television. Oh, I want one of those. You can’t help it. You want to pet it. You know. And that’s what happens. People go out and try to get them right.

Carney Anne Nasser
They do. Absolutely. And Tim Harrison in the documentary. He talks at length about that. That with the uptick in these television shows that feature animals subjected to the most inappropriate situations, there was a consequential uptick in the number of tigers and big cats he was pulling out of people’s basements and backyards. He calls it monkey see monkey do. And what we found with a lot of these bad actors, including Grant Kemmerer, who has been denied a license to exhibit animals in New York, on the basis that they found him unsuitable for an exhibitors license. He was exhibiting cats at a birthday party in New York, allowing free contact between people and juvenile cats. And the comments still in this person’s social media, if you were like, Oh, I want one is that your new pet? I want one or when some of these folks have brought big cats to Capitol Hill, in order to diminish interest in the big cat public safety act by providing hands on experiences. The response is resoundingly how much for one of those cats. I want one too.



George Knapp   
I thought that was one of the most powerful scenes in the film is, you know, you see all this really hard fought lobbying where animal activists go and educate the lawmakers and tell them why this is bad and what needs to be done and it seems like they’re sold. And then the next film scene, you’ve got all the senate staffers and congressional staffers lining up to get a picture with a baby cat that somebody has brought to sort of counter that lobbying.

Carney Anne Nasser
Which isn’t even legal in Washington, D.C., yet it’s happening right there at the Capitol.

George Knapp 
And it works, right?

Carney Anne Nasser 
And it has worked. And finally, with The Conservation Game coming out, the Columbus Zoo, and Senator Portman from Ohio have gotten on board with support for the Big Cat Public Safety Act after many years of being holdouts, and it’s an important turn of events because that, you know, Jack Hanna’s lack of support for the Big Cat Public Safety Act was one of the main reasons that a lot of legislators wouldn’t support it either.

George Knapp  
The central players in this film, they confront all these animal celebrities, they go up and confront them and ask them really tough questions. And it’s pretty clear that they don’t want, the animal celebrities don’t want to engage, right? They try to find a way to avoid or they lie, just as they lie to Jimmy Kimmel, or, you know, The Today Show, but what happens to the animals afterwards?

Carney Anne Nasser  
Absolutely. They don’t want, they don’t want anything to do with it. And I think that’s such a big red flag to the public, that these individuals who are trying to tell us that they’re holding and showing you a critically endangered animal that’s deserving of our protection, and conservation can’t or won’t tell you what they do with that animal when they’re done with it.

George Knapp 
And what they do with it is inevitably dump it somewhere where it is exploited.

Carney Anne Nasser
Yeah, they’re ending up in roadside zoos. They’re ending up in other entertainment, or they’re ending up completely vanishing into thin air because of the lack of record keeping and the lack of requirement for there to be meaningful tracking of these animals.

George Knapp   
We really have no idea how many of these big cats are in people’s backyards do we?

Carney Anne Nasser  
We don’t. And there are so many numbers that get thrown out. You know, I’ve heard estimates between 5,000 and 15,000 tigers in the United States. And, you know, that far exceeds the number of tigers still left in the wild. But it’s really nearly impossible to come up with any degree of accuracy in that estimation, because there’s no way of tracking and what we found from exhibitors, like the infamous Joe Exotic who’s serving a long prison sentence for a number of federal crimes, including wildlife trafficking and endangered species crimes. Some of these animals just get shot and buried in the backyard.

George Knapp  
There’s a point at the animal auction where the principal characters in the movie, see a notorious figure, the guy from Zane, Ohio, who unleashed his menagerie, unleashed his zoo of exotic animals and just said, go. He was back there at this auction, presumably buying more?

Carney Anne Nasser   
Yeah, he was at this auction. I mean, that man had dozens and dozens of dangerous,  exotic and wild animals. And it wasn’t just him. It was Jared Miller, who’s been on Animal Planet and a number of other television shows as a you know, an alleged conservationist and that’s where just the betrayal of public trust that these people who are trying to tell us how we should think and behave with respect to endangered species are actually then turning around and going to exotic animal auctions and doing business with roadside zoos, and individuals who have long histories of refusing to comply with minimum standards of the law with respect to animal welfare, and public safety.

George Knapp  
The lives for these animals that are discarded, are pretty miserable. Living in small cages, some out of the way place, get hauled into stressful situations in front of crowds, things of that sort, but it’s miserable for them.

Carney Anne Nasser 
Yeah, being a wide ranging complex apex predator who’s then forced to live in a travel trailer. Because the roadside zoo can’t afford to build a suitable habitat is a denial of everything that’s natural and important to them. I mean, there’s actually a term called zoochosis for animals who are forced to live in inappropriate conditions for an extended period of time. It’s psychologically damaging and diminishes their life expectancy.

George Knapp   
How do these celebrity conservationists make dough? I see their appearances on Kimmel and shows like that, Tonight Show. That’s not a way to make a living, though. How did they cash in?

Carney Anne Nasser 
Well, I mean you’d have to ask him that. But you know, they’re engaged in exhibiting animals for a number of different programs. So I don’t know what the going rate is now at Animal Planet for, you know, a show with animals but there’s certainly a hypocrisy there with the way that they’re suggesting these animals should be conserved and protected when they’re just using them to turn a profit. 

George Knapp   
The Columbus Zoo, that name comes up a lot in the film as being sort of a conduit for animals either. We got it from the Columbus Zoo or we sent it back to Columbus Zoo. Is the zoo in league with these characters or has the zoo been in league with him.

Carney Anne Nasser  
Well, the zoo has recently come out and said and acknowledged that they did not do proper record keeping. So they were not adhering to their own standards and the standards of the AZA with respect to tracking the coming and going of their animal inventory. And these characters like Grant Kemmerer who come up. He’s one of the common threads that connects the Columbus Zoo and Jack Hanna and Dave Salmoni and Jared Miller, and all of them are sort of in this same connected web of individuals who are using animals and then dumping them when they’re done using them for the television shows.

George Knapp
The film highlights the problems and as you said, tracking the animals and figuring out how many of them are out there and keeping track of who’s selling them to whom one of the worst places for that, I would think, is Nevada. And you know, people like Karl Mitchell, all the big cats that used to be used on the strip, but not exactly sure where all those are. There are a variety, different menageries and backyards all over our state. Could you characterize Nevada, where things stand with Mitchell and how our state might fit into the big picture.

Carney Anne Nasser
So I mean, Nevada just passed an important piece of legislation that prohibits public contact with big cats. And this is an important first step, it’s necessary but not sufficient to get a handle on the problem of big cat ownership in the state of Nevada, it’s still going to be a haven for big cat owners, as long as there’s no regulation of the private ownership of big cats here. But the reason that prohibiting public contact is such an important first step is because it’s the public contact the lucrative public contact opportunities. I mean, some of these tiger experiences: bottle feeding, play with tigers, photo ops with tigers, swim with tigers even they go from 50 to 1000s of dollars per session. And these animals are used up to 50 or 60 sessions a day in some cases. So it’s an extremely lucrative business. But under federal law, they can only be used between approximately eight and 12 weeks of age for those public contact opportunities. So in order to keep the money coming in, they have to keep the tiger cubs coming in. And when you prohibit public contact, then you lessen the demand because you remove the profit making activity as an available option for those cats. And it’s an important first first step to combating that illegal activity.

George Knapp  
It’s been illegal for Karl Mitchell to do that for a long time. USDA hits him with this, they hit him with fines, they tell him you can’t display them. He does it anyway, he brings them to Las Vegas. He has them posing for photos with Paris Hilton, gets away with it over and over and over again. And you know, it seems like a lot of these offenders do the same thing around the country. What’s the problem with cracking down on them?

Carney Anne Nasser
You know, Karl Mitchell has been exhibiting animals without a USDA license for over 20 years. A USDA license is the minimum requirement for exhibiting animals to the public. And his USDA license was permanently revoked over 20 years ago, in part for some of his abusive training techniques. But he has continued to flout the law and has continued even as recently as last year, when he was caught exhibiting animals without a license from both the city of Las Vegas and the US Department of Agriculture, at the Artisan Hotel on the strip, and what is so offensive about that is that he had been hired in order to help generate money that was going to be used to combat and help investigate wildlife crimes. How outrageous is that? I mean, so this is an individual who has continued to profit off of other people’s sympathies, and their affinity for big cats, and has gone unchecked. And he also is one of the recipients of a number of tigers from Joe Exotic, now in prison for illegal activity and wildlife trafficking. So he’s an individual who has been operating and flying under the radar for way too long.

George Knapp  
I’ve read a couple articles. One was in the New York Times, I think, earlier this year about zoos. I wonder how many of the kinds of criticisms that you’re leveling at animal celebrities could apply to zoos and the exploitation of animals showing them for displaying them for profit. Does the point get to where? All right now we’ve taken on the celebrity conservationist, let’s take a look at zoos are they next

Carney Anne Nasser 
Well, all of this activity the Columbus Zoo has been doing. I mean, this all happened on late night shows, this all happened on morning shows. It’s not like this was happening under the cover of darkness. And this all happened under the nose of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which we have long propped up as this gold standard in the conservation world. But my question is, where have they been in enforcing their own ethics standards? Knowing that this activity has been going on, on television. It’s a question that deserves an answer.

George Knapp 
Maybe they think it drives traffic to zoos?

Carney Anne Nasser 
It’s possible, and I know that, that they feel like the animal ambassador programs generate awareness. However, when you have a revolving door of zoos that do business with unaccredited, roadside menageries. And that are not being truthful with the public about how they acquire animals. What the disposition of those animals is, they’re sometimes riding the fence about their position that they’re willing to take on public contact. I mean, what’s then the difference, like in philosophy between an accredited zoo and a roadside zoo?

George Knapp   
The legislation that, you know, the film shows how the lobbying for legislation looks like it was making really good progress that made some converts there. It’s still not the law, right?

Carney Anne Nasser 
It’s still not the law because the legislative session ended before it could be. It was introduced in the Senate. Now we have the bill pending again, it was reintroduced in the house. And in the Senate, we now have new support from people like Senator Rob Portman in Ohio, whose voice carries a lot of weight. And this, I truly believe, I’m forever optimist, that now is the best time it’s the best opportunity we’ve ever had to carry this thing across the finish line and get it passed once and for all, for public safety, and for the welfare and conservation of animals. 

George Knapp 
What will it do? What will the world be like after it becomes law? Assuming they enforce it.

Carney Anne Nasser 
Right. So after the Big Cat Public Safety Act becomes law, public contact opportunities will be completely illegal in all 50 states. And the private ownership of big cats will be prohibited. There’s a grandfather clause. So it’s not like the feds are going to go in and take anybody’s pet tiger if they already have one. It’s going to grandfather that in. But it will phase out the private ownership. And that’s the dumping ground for these animals. Once they’re done being used for public contact and cub petting, then they get dumped into the exotic pet trade. And so it’s really tackling the problem at its genesis, and then at the end, to hopefully get out in front of this issue of a surplus of these tigers in the United States, where we don’t know where they’re going, where they’re ending up, where they’re coming from, how they’re being treated or housed. It’s a public safety problem. We just saw three tigers in suburban neighborhoods in Texas in three months, out on the town. And that’s just you know, one example. So the bill is really important to finally put a nail in the coffin on that cub petting industry, which is the genesis of our tiger crisis in America.



George Knapp  
I remember when Blackfish came out, the haughty attitude of SeaWorld like they were gonna ride this out, and they’re gonna continue business as usual. Thise are animal extremists, we’re gonna stay in business. They didn’t, you know, they had to change. Is it your hope that the TV shows that have perpetuated this that invite these animals celebrities over and over and over again, will change once they see it?

Carney Anne Nasser  
I believe it’s over. I think that there’s no way that this film comes out and that that continues. There’s just no ethical way to continue that practice. This bell cannot be unrung. And you know, this Columbus Zoo has acknowledged their shortcomings. They’ve acknowledged sweeping changes. They’ve acknowledged philosophical changes. They’re no longer allowing any big cats or primates off property, period. They’ve cut ties with all of the roadside zoos, and animal exhibitors who were featured in The Conservation Game, so that the movie is already having an impact even though it’s not even available for public release yet.

George Knapp  
They know it’s coming. The people targeted know it’s coming. Jack Hanna has decided to retire and suddenly he retires abruptly and there’s an announcement that he’s got dementia. You don’t know if that’s the case or not, but he’s done.

Carney Anne Nasser  
He is done. Suzy Rapp is done. She was his right hand man so to speak, and the director of the animal programming at the Columbus zoo. And in the last month, she retired. The CEO and CFO of the Columbus Zoo under whom much of this activity happened, were forced to resign for financial misdealings with the zoo resources. And that happened in the same month that the movie premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. So it is a new day at the Columbus Zoo. And I’m heartened to see what is happening at the Columbus Zoo and the changes that are being made, that should be made. And I hope they will continue to pursue change with total transparency. Because after so many years of subterfuge, this is what people will respond to. We’re so forgiving, people are forgiving, when they know that they’re not being lied to.

George Knapp  
Kimmel, Tonight Show, Today Show, you would think once they see it, their producers see it, they’re not going to be booking these people anymore on their shows. Right?

Carney Anne Nasser 
As long as they don’t take a defensive attitude. I mean, this is we’re not targeting those hosts, as you know, complicit in any of the activity that we uncovered. They too are victims, you know, many of these individuals contribute to animal welfare and humane societies and they really, were asking a lot of the right questions like they were questioning, should we have this agitated animal on? Where’s the mother? What’s gonna happen? What’s the life going to be like, of this cat after this show? Which facility is it going to go to? When will their eyes open? How old is it? Like all of these questions are very good questions, and they were being lied to just along with the rest of us.

George Knapp   
Tell me about the Las Vegas event, the Las Vegas premiere of the film.

Carney Anne Nasser  
On September 8, the conservation game will be premiering in Las Vegas at the AMC Town Center. And the tickets are available. If you go to theconservationgame.com  You can find where tickets are available for a number of different showings that week. We’re having screenings all over the United States. And I know that that one’s selling out quick, we have sold out all of our screenings that we’ve offered so far. So I encourage anyone who’s curious about it to go get their tickets now because you won’t be able to buy them the day of the screening itself.

George Knapp   
And ultimately, how will people see it, it’ll be in theaters and in home, you’ll be able to see it at home too?

Carney Anne Nasser  
We’re working with Cargo distribution company, and they are working on how it’s going to be, you know, delivered to the public at large. And we’ve been rolling out the film with special private screenings following the premiere at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. And September is going to be exciting because we’ll have runs and screenings in a number of cities. And after that it’ll become more broadly available.  And for anyone who isn’t comfortable going out in public yet or you know, because wants to social distance, there’s an opportunity to see the film from the comfort of your home and do Q&A or see Q&A with the film’s director, Tim Harrison, myself and Carole Baskin, at the conclusion of the film, and that’s going to be September, I’m sorry, August 24. And it’s available through Sports Illustrated tickets. It’s actually their very first streaming opportunity that they are offering and that information is on theconservationgame.com website as well.