President Biden Signs Bill Outlawing Private Ownership of Big Cats

The days of paying to pet lion and tiger cubs, as portrayed in the hit Netflix documentary television series “Tiger King,” are officially over in the United States.

On Tuesday, President Biden signed a bill into lawIt prohibits unlicensed individuals from owning, breeding, and transporting big cats. The law also bans licensed exhibitors — mainly zoos and sanctuaries — from allowing the public to touch the animals or hold cubs.

“Tiger King,” which captivated viewers stuck at home in 2020, shone a light on the fraught world of private big cat ownership and highlighted the “miserable conditions thousands of tigers, lions, leopards, and pumas are kept in by irresponsible owners,” Representative Mike Quigley, Democrat of Illinois, said in a statement.

The seven-part series featured a turbulent industry of roadside attraction zoos in America. They zoomed in on an Oklahoma facility now closed by Joseph Maldonado Passage (a colorful character who also goes under the name Joe Exotic).

The show also focused on simmering discord between Mr. Maldonado-Passage and Carole Baskin, a self-described animal rights activist often clad in animal-print apparel who denounced Mr. Maldonado-Passage’s zoo.

G.W. G.W. Groupon admission deals,Customers could choose to take photos and cuddle cubs. The “Tiger King” footage included a scene of a cub being separated from its mother shortly after birth.

In January 2021, several months after the show’s release, Mr. Quigley introduced the “Big Cat Public Safety Act,” which in July of this year passed in the House of RepresentativesWith a vote of 278 to 134 and in the Senate unanimously earlier in the month. The bill covers species of lions, leopards, cheetahs, jaguars, cougars, and hybrids of these cats.

The new law will “not only help end the cruel and inhumane cub petting industry,” Mr. Quigley said in a statementIt will also make communities safer.

Animal rights advocates praised the legislation, calling it long overdue. Sara Amundson, president of the Humane Society Legislative Fund, said that the law ended “a warped industry with no socially redeeming purpose, perpetrating great harm to animals while putting Americans at risk every day of the year.”

Ms. Amundson added that the bill would put a stop to what she called “an endless cycle of exploiting and mistreating big cat cubs, who were dumped after they grew too large for photo ops.” In the last two decades, more than 400 “dangerous incidents” involving big cats occurred in 46 states and the District of Columbia, including at least 24 deaths, according to the Humane Society of the United States.

The new law gives owners of large cats 180 days to register their animal with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Failure to comply with the law can result in a fine up to $20,000 and five years imprisonment.

After Mr. Maldonado Passage had been arrested in 2018, he was charged with a crime. tried twice the prior year, unsuccessfully, to hire peopleto kill Ms. Baskin. Mr. Maldonado-Passage paid an employee $3,000 to cut off Ms. Baskin’s head, according to court records. He made the grave mistake of hiring an F.B.I. undercover agent in a second attempt. agent.

He was also found guilty of falsifying wildlife recordsHe was charged with violating the Endangered Species Act and for his involvement in killing tigers and trafficking them.

Mr. Maldonado Passage, who claims his innocence, is now serving 21 years in prison.

Ms. Baskin, who is the chief executive and founder of a Tampa, Fla.-based organization called Big Cat Rescue, told The New York Times that she viewed the bill’s passage as “the greatest achievement in my 30 years of working to stop mistreatment of big cats.”

She also said in a statement that the bill came after “many years of battling against narcissistic, abusive, dangerous men who dominated this cruel trade and did everything they could to stop its passage, including wanting to intimidate, discredit, and even kill me.”

She expressed gratitude for being “harder to intimidate or kill than some thought.”