Tim Stark of Tiger King Preparing Major Fight Against PETA, Says They Killed At Least 20 Percent of Animals Seized From Him

 

If you search for Tim Stark on Google, you might find yourself siding with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and believing that he is some kind of cartoon villain, torturing animals for his own sick monetary gain, but people who know him have a far different take on this complex man.

Stark, who ran the Wildlife in Need preserve in Indiana, has had all of his animals seized by PETA — and they are now looking to take his home after being awarded $750,000 by an apparent activist-judge for the legal fees they incurred while targeting him.

Though the extremist organization was allowed to take all of his animals and livelihood, Stark has never been charged for animal cruelty or abuse.

You see, the Tiger King personality has a very strong belief in free speech, and most importantly, the freedom to offend. When you speak to him, the words that come out of his mouth are almost shocking at times, because there aren’t very many people left in society that actually say exactly what they mean. This brashness has made him the perfect target for animal rights groups that need “bad guys” to make their money.

By all accounts from his friends, however, what Stark lacks in conventional etiquette during conversations, he more than makes up for with his close bond to animals.

“Imagine if you plucked Tarzan out of the jungle and stuck him in Indiana, that is Tim,” his friend Em Lambert, who has dedicated her life to researching and exposing the abuses of animal rights groups, told. She described meeting him for the first time and seeing him walk right up to wild birds, who welcomed his company without fear.

While speaking to Stark, his contempt for the people who have been attacking him softened as soon as he began to discuss an animal that he has cared for. He would go from angrily talking about the “f-cktards” at PETA, to warmly describing a sweet little spider monkey that used to sleep in his bed with him. He believes that monkey is now dead after being seized by PETA.

The veteran told , “I got attacked by a terrorist organization that the government is not only supporting, they’re funding.”

His honesty and way with words was refreshing in a world that has become so sanitized. During our first chat, for example, he asserted that his former lawyer was “as useless as a fishnet condom,” bringing some comedy and levity into a sad and serious conversation.

See, Stark is yet another victim of PETA, who abuse loopholes in the well-meaning Endangered Species Act to snatch animals from their homes, no matter how well they are cared for. The harassment campaign waged against him has become so ruthless that he threatened to commit suicide on a Facebook livestream in April.

“I fought this sh-t with our government, I guess going on about 15 f-cking years now,” Stark said in his somber video. “I grew up in the 70s and the 80s. I was obsessed with animals. Always have been, all my life. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to be around.”

He explained that in 2006, he was placed under investigation by the federal government for illegally selling an ocelot. He said that he had called the feds prior to the sale to ask if he was allowed to do it and how he should do it properly. They gave him no information, and did not tell him not to do the sale, but went after him for it a couple years later. Under advice of a friend and attorney, he pled guilty in 2008 and paid his fines.

Stark did not continue selling animals, telling his friend Lambert, “I don’t like putting a dollar figure on an animal head. I would much rather just give them away hoping they go to the right place.”

In 2015, PETA filed complaints against him with the United States Department of Agriculture to try and get his license revoked, citing the case seven years prior. Stark believes that this was because the infamous Carole Baskin had told the organization to go after him.

“They pushed it, they sued me, we won, they appealed, we won again. The USDA was being pressured by PETA to do all of that,” Stark said.

Stark explained that he was then sued by the USDA, who were essentially trying to re-litigate what he had already pleaded guilty to in 2008. He beat that, too. 

“At this point, they decided to go and attack me for everything,” Stark said. “I had, more or less, a perfect record with the USDA for damn near 14 years.” All the way up, until PETA started “bullying, intimidating, illegally getting into our system” and taking over the USDA, he said.

Stark maintains that once PETA came after him, he started being written up for things that were entirely untrue, and that had never been an issue during inspections by the USDA before. He maintains that the organization, working with the Attorney General, created fake inspection reports to destroy him and his livelihood. “I proved it,” he asserted.

“It’s a corrupt f-cking system,” Stark said, sounding worn out and exhausted from the abuse. “If anyone would take the time to listen and look at the transcripts.”

At this point, Stark became the target of much larger lawsuits — including another one from PETA itself. He says that he did not believe that he had done anything wrong, so he did not think it would be hard to fight. He represented himself pro se.

Sadly, he lost to the notorious animal killers.

When PETA was granted the right by the court to enter Stark’s property and take his animals, he was not allowed to film them. This seems to be the case in every situation where they seize animals. It has left many wondering what the organization is trying to hide. If they are “saving” these animals from such poor conditions, why don’t they want anyone to see it?

“I was ordered off the f-cking property,” Stark told the Gateway Pundit, adding that any surveillance cameras he had were also ordered to be turned off. “Guess what they did to my security cameras? They cut all the wires.”

PETA did not just take the animals, they also took his personal property including cages and other supplies.

“They had permission to cut and destroy my cages. I had a lot of very expensive and large cages, they took cage after cage, food bowls, water bowls, everything,” he explained. The organization was originally only granted permission to take a certain list of animals, but that was later changed to “any animal they observed on the property” including cats, dogs and personal pets.

To protect his domestic pets, Stark began to take them off the property — and was arrested for it.

Stark explained that “these f-ckers actually came into my house while I was off the property. I had a lizard in my house that I was watching for a friend’s son while they were on vacation and they took not only the lizard, but the aquarium, heater, the lights, everything.”

Sadly, Stark believes that many of the animals PETA took are now dead.

“We have proof that some of my animals were dead before they ever got to the Indianapolis Zoo, two hours away. We also have 100 percent confirmation that some of the animals they sent to other places are also dead. They’ve already killed about 20 percent of my animals,” Stark said. “But I was the bad guy because I will stand up to anybody and everybody?”

One of the biggest problems with this seizure is that most of the things PETA targeted him over were perfectly legal.

Stark admits that he had declawed some tiger cubs and allowed people to interact with them, which, while many disagree with it, is not currently illegal. He was licensed by the USDA and was overseen and guided by their rules and regulations.

“They were fully aware that I was declawing cats,” he said. He was never cited for it.

“PETA are murderers,” Stark said, his tone extremely dire. “I can prove that and I will prove that.”

While he may have been declawing some animals, it is well documented that PETA kills the cats and dogs that are brought to their Virginia shelter. Stark believes that there are even more shocking and sinister actions being taken by the organization.

For example, one of the ways PETA has been going after privately owned zoos and exotic pet owners has been by targeting their veterinarians. When the vet backs off out of fear of ESA lawsuit, PETA then goes to the court and says “look, they don’t have a proper vet.”

Stark’s veterinarian was set to be his main character witness in his defense against PETA, but you all can probably guess what happened next.

“They said that I had violated the endangered species act by declawing some of my big cats and used them for public interaction, so they turned around and filed an intent to sue my vet,” Stark explained. “Remember, this is my main character witness, they threatened to sue him under the ESA, but said that if he agreed to stop being my vet they would drop the lawsuit.”

PETA went on to file the lawsuit against the vet, who was on his last couple years before retirement. Stark eventually convinced him to drop him as a client to save himself. Funny how an organization who claims to want the best for these animals went out of their way to block them from receiving proper veterinary care.

In their blatant propaganda about Stark, PETA also likes to paint an unfortunate incident related to the euthanasia of a leopard in the most horrific light imaginable, though they gleefully support euthanasia when they do it themselves.

Stark had taken in two leopard cubs that were surrendered to his wild life facility because they were very aggressive. He did not realize the reason that they were behaving that way until he found one dead in their enclosure. It turned out that they had Metabolic Bone Disease and were constantly dealing with the pain from hairline fractures they obtained while doing normal things, like playing.

One day, Stark was inside the enclosure feeding the leopard while holding a bat that he used as a sort of walking cane. The animal ran head first into it and fell over, twitching and frothing at the mouth. As a licensed animal caretaker, Stark immediately knew that the cub had just shattered his skull. Sadly, it would need to be put down — but his veterinarian was located 45 minutes away. 

Stark, being well versed in all aspects of animal care, knew that letting the animal suffer for something that could not be fixed was inhumane. So, he used the bat to put it out of the misery. 

While this sounds awful, manually applied blunt force trauma is one of several euthanasia techniques considered acceptable by the American Veterinary Medical Association.

“If blunt-force trauma is done correctly, it can actually be among the most humane of methods performed,” Dr. Gail C. Golab of the American Veterinary Association said in their euthanasia guidelines.

Stark maintains that the animal was no longer in pain within five seconds. He told the Gateway Pundit that he still believes that what he chose to do was the most humane method for him to handle the situation and makes no apologies for it. He also self reported this incident to his USDA inspector, despite no requirement for him to do so.

Writing about what is being done to Stark, the website AWVSAR reported, “PETA has deployed undercover operations on Tim by Shane M. to volunteer for four months and were faced with mysterious deaths and illnesses of animals.” This operation was “followed by massive letter writing campaigns, labeling him an animal abuser and libeling him in public forums.” They noted that this operation “caused multiple investigations by numerous government agencies (in which nothing was ever found wrong).”

“The end goal of these continued undercover investigations was to deny him of income and generally make it difficult to stay in business. Which is 100% a violation of the AETA (Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act),” the report continued. They also noted that on April 10, 2019, after a seven and a half hour long interrogation, Stark suffered a massive heart attack, and nearly died. “The physical heart problems still continue, but the heart of the warrior is growing nothing but stronger.”

“They should be assisting places like Wildlife in Need in upgrading facilities and training of staff and volunteers, instead they are holding siege on the Kingdom that Tim Stark set out to build as his life’s passion, and to fulfill his lifetime pursuit of Happiness,” they added.

“PETA has been labeled as terrorists by the United States government, so why does our government allow terrorists to have anything to do with my f-cking country?” Stark asked. “I spent six years in the United States Army. I thought I could fight PETA and I was doing damn good, then they started conspiring not only with the USDA, but the Indiana Attorney General.”

Stark is now being represented by Pierce Bainbridge and the National Constitutional Law Union Inc. (NCLU), who also represented Tonia Haddix against PETA when they seized six chimps from their beautiful private sanctuary — and he has big plans to fight back.

“Tim is yet another client we are representing that is falling victim to attacks from PETA. The way PETA is moving could appear as if they want to ensure that any animal that is covered under the Endangered Species Act should be under their control and ownership,” Stark’s lawyer John Pierce told the Gateway Pundit. “However many attempts PETA continues to make to own and take control of these animals from privately owned zoos and sanctuaries, I and the NCLU will continue to fight to save these animals. The NCLU is committed to helping people such as Tim Stark and other owners of wildlife refuges and we will not give up the fight until we find justice and protection that these animals deserve.”

Ryan Marshall, Chief Financial Officer and associate, pending admission, at the NCLU told Gateway that “the pain I viewed from PETA stepping in to take these animals is on the level of watching a person come in and rip children out of the arms of their parents. The heartbreak and pain you see is simply devastating.”

Those who wish to help Stark fight back against PETA can donate to the NCLU.