Striped Reckoning: Tiger Kings and the Battle to Rescue America's Captive Big Cats - Paperback
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Striped Reckoning charts the shocking history of exotic big cats in the United States and chronicles how the struggle to drive a trio of breeders out of business and rehome their nearly two hundred captive lions and tigers led to a momentous new law protecting these majestic animals. Through the years big cats have been used in circuses and movies and paraded onto television talk shows, encouraging ordinary Americans to think of these apex predators as docile and adorable. Breeders made small fortunes selling cubs and charging customers to pose for photos with them, only to neglect and abuse them behind the scenes.
Striped Reckoning explores how animal advocates worked to drive modern-day Tiger Kings Joe Exotic, Tim Stark, and Jeff Lowe out of business. After Exotic was convicted of trying to arrange the murder of a sanctuary owner, his story exploded on Netflix, and the federal government moved in on Stark and Lowe. Then sanctuaries across the country stepped in to rescue and rehabilitate the big cats that were left behind.
Carol Bradley is a former journalist who studied animal law as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. She is the author of three previous books about animals, including Twisting in Air: The Sensational Rise of a Hollywood Falling Horse (Bison Books, 2024), winner of the 2025 Will Rogers Medallion, and Last Chain on Billie: How One Extraordinary Elephant Escaped the Big Top.
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