For Quick Launch:
April 22, 2022
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
Oklahoma Metropolis – The U.S. District Court docket for the Western District of Oklahoma has simply ordered animal exhibitor and Tiger King villain Jeff Lowe to pay $183,557.90 in attorneys’ charges and prices to PETA, stemming from the group’s profitable Endangered Species Act (ESA) lawsuit towards him. Within the first courtroom resolution establishing that Lowe’s therapy of animals was so poor that it violated the ESA, the courtroom had dominated in February that he “handled 4 lions … with appalling cruelty.” Now, he should pay the piper.
“No amount of cash can undo the struggling that these lions endured, however the decide has despatched a transparent sign that animal abuse comes with a hefty price ticket,” says PETA Basis Director of Litigation Asher Smith. “This contemporary blow will make it more durable for Lowe to do enterprise, and PETA asks the general public to wipe out different animal exploiters by shunning all roadside zoos.”
Lowe was added as a defendant in PETA’s lawsuit towards his former enterprise associate, fellow Tiger King topic Tim Stark, after they each violated a number of courtroom orders within the case by transporting the 4 cubs on the heart of the go well with to Lowe’s Wynnewood property. One among them, Kahari, died solely days earlier than PETA may facilitate her rescue. The courtroom agreed that Lowe—who had lied concerning the circumstances of Kahari’s loss of life and left her physique exterior to decompose past the purpose at which a necropsy may decide its trigger—was chargeable for her loss of life.
The courtroom additionally discovered Lowe responsible for quite a lot of violations, together with failing to take sufficient COVID-19 precautions and failing to rent a veterinarian with ample coaching; feeding lions solely rancid meat; and having an absence of sufficient enclosures, which contributed to grotesque accidents, together with a chunk wound that required a part of the paw of 1 lion, named Amelia, to be amputated.
PETA’s prior victories allowed the group to rescue the three surviving cubs, together with 22 different massive cats—together with Nala, who doubtless would have died if PETA hadn’t intervened. The group will put the price award towards its efforts to free different animals from decrepit roadside zoos and can proceed in its efforts to recoup funds from Lowe and Stark, the latter of whom owes PETA greater than $750,000 in authorized charges and different prices.
PETA—whose motto reads, partly, that “animals should not ours to make use of for leisure”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For extra info on PETA’s newsgathering and reporting, please go to PETA.org or comply with the group on Twitter, Fb, or Instagram.
