A Nevada man was arrested last week after seven tigers that he claimed were his emotional support animals were seized from his property, the local authorities said.
Karl Mitchell, 71, was arrested on Wednesday at his property in Pahrump, an unincorporated town in Nye County about 50 miles west of Las Vegas, on charges of resisting arrest and possession of a gun by a prohibited person, according to records from the Nye County Sheriff’s Office.
A SWAT team had entered the property to seize the tigers, which the Sheriff’s Office said Mr. Mitchell had been keeping without the permit required by the county. Mr. Mitchell refused to provide keys to the tiger cages and was then arrested just before 8 a.m., according to the documents. A handgun was also found in the bedroom of Mr. Mitchell, who is a felon, the Sheriff’s Office said.
Mr. Mitchell was released later that evening, according to the records.
Sheriff Joe McGill of Nye County told KSNV, the NBC affiliate in Las Vegas, that the investigation into Mr. Mitchell, who was also being evicted from his property, had begun several months ago. “We have known for several years he has had big cats on his property, and for the last two years, this has been in violation because he had no permits for those cats,” Sheriff McGill said.
Sheriff McGill added that his office had received information over the years indicating that Mr. Mitchell was seen walking the tigers in and around the property in the desert.
In a phone interview on Sunday, Mr. Mitchell, who described himself as a veteran with PTSD, said that a doctor with the Department of Veterans Affairs had approved of his keeping the Bengal tigers as “emotional support” animals. He also provided what appeared to be a letter from the doctor. The doctor did not immediately respond to a phone call seeking comment on Monday.
“They give me calmness, peace,” Mr. Mitchell said. “They are our whole life, and they’re our children.”
A spokesman from the Veterans Affairs Department said that officials there were looking into the claims that Mr. Mitchell had been given permission to keep the animals but did not have any further information on Monday.
The Sheriff’s Office would not comment on whether or not Mr. Mitchell was authorized to keep the tigers as his “emotional support” animals, or what kind of condition they were found in on Wednesday.
Mr. Mitchell said he had formerly run an organization called Big Cat Encounters, which rescued tigers and trained them for film and television commercials, but that it had not been active for more than two decades.
Three or four of the seized tigers, Mr. Mitchell said in the interview, came from Joe Exotic, the former Oklahoma zoo owner featured in the 2020 Netflix documentary series “Tiger King” who is now in federal prison.
Joe Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, denied any connection to the tigers in a statement posted to social media. “None of these tigers came from me,” he said.
Mr. Maldonado-Passage is currently serving a 21-year prison sentence for the failed murder-for-hire plot targeting Carole Baskin, an animal-rights activist who had criticized his zoo’s treatment of animals.
According to court documents, Mr. Mitchell’s license to exhibit animals was revoked in 2001, but he continued exhibiting tigers. He received payment from people who were photographed with or allowed to pet the animals, according to the documents, and in 2009, trained a tiger that was brought to the set of a Paris Hilton reality show where “it was filmed while being petted by various cast members.”
The United States Department of Agriculture cited several instances in which Mr. Mitchell violated cease and desist orders, and in 2010, it reinforced those cease and desist orders and penalized Mr. Mitchell and his business with more than $68,000 in fines.
In a statement, Ms. Baskin’s group, Big Cat Rescue, said there had been a lengthy battle to rescue Mr. Mitchell’s animals. “For over 30 years, he used and allegedly abused big cats, peddling them as photo props and entertainment novelties while racking up a rap sheet of animal welfare violations,” the group said.
According to Big Cat Rescue, the seven tigers had been transferred to Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas.
Tanya Smith, the president of the refuge, said she had been present while the authorities seized the animals on Wednesday morning and described the tigers as being kept in poor conditions, without adequate access to water. She said that their enclosures were small and that the fencing was not secure, posing a potential risk to the public.
All seven tigers, three males and four females, had been tranquilized and put into crates before being transported in two tractor-trailers, Ms. Smith said. They arrived at the refuge on Friday morning, she added. “It depends on the judge if we’ll be able to keep the cats here,” Ms. Smith said. “But it seems like it’s a no-brainer.”
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