There is no denying animals can provide an immense amount of comfort, love, and joy to people. Having something in your life that relies and depends on you can also help to reset your priorities and focus your mind and heart on how valuable life truly is. But what if your support animal was a tiger?
And what if you had seven of them? Things start getting a bit complicated at that point considering that, you know, tigers are endangered animals and someone having seven of them could pose some problems. That’s what led to the police arresting Karl Mitchell.
Mitchell, a Nevada man from the town of Pahrump, was visited by the police on April 2nd after an extended investigation into the seven tigers he was keeping on his property. Though part of the issues stems from how the property wasn’t owned by Mitchell. He was being evicted and refusing to let the landowner inspect the area. One can probably assume it had to do with the seven tigers we previously mentioned. The police apparently knew about the cats since Mitchell was not being very conspicuous about them. He would be seen walking the tigers around the desert area and letting people take pictures with them to post on social media.
In his defense, Mitchell is stating that his VA doctor approved for the animals to be used for emotional support, owing to his status as a disabled veteran. Allegedly Mitchell’s girlfriend provided papers confirming this but one has to imagine there’s something suspicious about that. We could be wrong, but it’s hard to imagine a licensed doctor signing off on seven exotic cats to be kept as emotional support animals by a single man on a private residence in Nevada.
Police claim that Mitchell did not have permits for the animals, nor did he have permits to have them walking out and about and interacting with other people. They also claim that some of the large cats were underweight and algae was found in their water dishes.
Also, in case you think this story needed a twist to it, Mitchell states he rescued six of the tigers from Joe Exotic. You remember Joe, from “Tiger King.“ Yup, that guy. And we’re not saying it’s impossible, but to keep seven tigers properly fed… that’s a lot of meat for one guy to have on hand.
Currently, the tigers have been relocated to a sanctuary while police continue to investigate the case. Mitchell was ultimately arrested on charges of resisting a peace officer and being a felon in possession of a gun.
