The lions ate his tiger, police say. Inside the troubled journey of Ontario’s Tiger King and the exotic animal’s grisly death

Tamara the tiger died among the many old-growth yellow birch and sugar maple bushes of a dense Ontario forest.

She was mauled by a pack of lions contained in the lumber-and-wire enclosure the place all of them lived.

The person liable for caring for the animals was nowhere in sight.

Precisely how the lions acquired to Tamara, who lived in a roadside zoo in Maynooth simply south of Algonquin Park on a July Sunday, isn’t clear.

An Ontario Provincial Police report says the lions tunnelled out of their enclosure and ate her.

The tiger’s proprietor, Mark Drysdale, says the OPP have it unsuitable. He says Tamara squeezed into the lion’s cage.

“She shouldn’t have went by way of the door. I f----ed up. The door ought to have been closed. I made a giant mistake.”

Drysdale nonetheless lives on the distant property alongside a freeway 25 km north of Bancroft, however the roadside zoo is gone. The enclosures have been taken down and his animals despatched away. The untimely finish of his zoo closed one other chapter in a historical past of bother that has adopted Drysdale for almost a decade. He had zoos in two different Ontario communities that closed after complaints and operating afoul of municipal zoning bylaws. In a single incident, a lynx attacked a baby.

Drysdale’s travelling menagerie has triggered some small cities to go unique animal bylaws. However with out provincial laws, the patchwork of bylaws is the one factor standing in the best way of roadside zoos.

His story reveals the problem Ontario has had in coping with what animal rights activists, humane societies and accredited zoos say is a decades-old drawback within the province that has led to the mistreatment and deaths of animals.

As lately as Christmas Eve, the Ontario Provincial Police discovered the corpses of an alligator and 5 giant snakes in a Caledon ditch.

“Ontario is principally just like the wild west with regards to unique animals. It’s loopy,” stated Julie Woodyer, campaigns director of the Toronto-based animal rights group Zoocheck. “The minuscule rules which are listed below are simply not enforced.”

Drysdale stated he used a bulldozer to dig Tamara’s grave on the hardscrabble compound hemmed in by tall bushes a couple of days earlier than police arrived.

“I used to be bent over in ache like dropping a baby. I like my animals,” Drysdale stated. “Anybody who tries to fake that I don’t and that I simply do that for cash and that I simply stand again and allow them to get killed is simply so disgusting for even somebody to say that.”

When Tamara died on July 4, Drysdale was within the custody of the OPP after an incident in a automotive together with his now ex-wife, Tammy Cavers-Nyyssonen, who the tiger was named after. Drysdale later pleaded responsible to assault.

His authorized woes aren't over. Drysdale additionally faces prices below the Provincial Animal Welfare Companies (PAWS) Act for failing to supply correct look after his animals.

Drysdale stated he has executed nothing unsuitable, cares deeply for his animals, and his zoos educate the general public about, and defend, at-risk species like tigers.

“Individuals who know me know what I stand for, understand how nicely I deal with my animals, understand how a lot my animals love me,” he stated.

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Drysdale’s first unique animal was a coatimundi, a raccoon-like mammal from Mexico and South America. His assortment grew to incorporate lemurs, spider and squirrel monkeys, marmosets, foxes, wolves, a water buffalo, a kangaroo, a donkey, a lynx and, finally, lions.

Alongside his then-wife, Joni Prepare dinner, Drysdale created the Ringtail Ranch and Rescue zoo in Wainfleet, Ont., in 2013. The animals have been typically uncaged, together with a lion, foxes and wolves.

By summer season 2016, there had been 10 incidents of bites and scratches involving seven of the animals, together with the monkeys, foxes and coatimundi, in response to Niagara Area public well being information.

Drysdale says he reported most of these incidents to the general public well being division as a part of a compulsory reporting requirement.

“The municipality sort of used that in opposition to us,” he stated.

Greater than a thousand folks visited the ranch throughout a 2016 open home.

One particular person was bitten by a donkey. One other by a monkey.

A six-year-old woman was attacked by the lynx.

On the time, Drysdale advised a neighborhood newspaper the lynx cage was “not secure sufficient,” however he now blames the kid, claiming she frightened the cat by smashing “the window in the home the cat was in. And it was only a Canadian lynx. That’s what’s in everybody’s yard.” He stated the woman “acquired a scratch.”

In line with a 2017 lawsuit filed by the woman’s household, the lynx allegedly “lurched by way of the window of the shed and viciously attacked and mauled” the woman’s face and neck which required surgical restore and induced “everlasting disfigurement.”

Drysdale, who didn't file a defence with the courtroom, was ordered to pay the kid $20,000 in 2019. He advised Torstar he didn't know in regards to the order.

The Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals gave the ranch a passing grade later that summer season. 4 extra biting or scratching incidents adopted over the following two years, together with one involving a lion. In March 2018, Wainfleet council handed an unique animal bylaw prohibiting harmful animals, together with massive cats. 5 months later, citing inadequate enclosures for wild carnivores and predators, the general public well being division stepped in with an order prohibiting public entry to Drysdale’s animals.

“There's an ongoing excessive diploma of threat that these animals will chew and scratch guests,” the order stated.

In January 2019, Niagara public well being obtained a name from the Brant County well being unit. Drysdale, nonetheless itemizing his tackle as Wainfleet, got here to a Brantford hospital after being bitten in each arms by a lion, in response to Brant public well being information. In an interview, Drysdale initially couldn't recall the incident, then stated he scratched himself on a lion cage.

When a public well being inspector arrived at Ringtail to comply with up, he discovered the ranch deserted.

Drysdale and Prepare dinner divorced, and he left Niagara.

Drysdale stated he was not compelled to maneuver. “I met Tammy. Tammy and I went to Grand Bend.”

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Embarking on a contemporary begin, Drysdale and his new spouse Cavers-Nyyssonen revamped Grand Bend’s former Pineridge Zoo into their very own cat oasis, Roaring Cat Retreat.

By spring of 2019, the couple repossessed a few of their animals and moved to the small seaside city on Lake Huron simply northwest of London. In addition they acquired two extra predator cats — Tamara and Tony the tigers.

Though tigers are sometimes solitary animals, Tamara and Tony shared a cage inside a whisker’s size of Drysdale’s lion delight. At Drysdale’s homespun zoos, lions and tigers share a fence line. It’s so the animals get comfy with each other, stated Drysdale in a 2020 YouTube video.

Within the video, Tamara roars earlier than one of many lions prices on the fence. Tamara swats, hitting the fence.

“It’s not a good suggestion to maintain an animal and a species that that animal preys on within reach and sound of one another, for apparent causes,” stated Barry Kent MacKay, director of Animal Alliance of Canada, an animal advocacy group. “It may be very irritating for each.”

Tamara had one other fence-line faceoff with a lion simply days later. Oden — a lion Drysdale describes as “anti-social” — attacked Tamara by way of the fence whereas she slept, tearing flesh on her hip.

In a YouTube video after the assault, Drysdale is in a cage with Tamara exhibiting her wound to the digital camera and treating it with a veterinary antiseptic spray used to appease superficial wounds. Bigger zoos typically tranquilize animals to deal with wounds like Tamara’s, inflicting them stress, he provides.

Amy Naylor, a spokesperson for the Toronto Zoo, stated, typically, that staffers don’t should deal with minor accidents on tigers, sometimes feeding them oral ache killers if a wound seems painful. In additional severe circumstances, zoo handlers would tranquillize an injured tiger and guarantee it was sleeping earlier than stepping into an enclosure to deal with it.

Drysdale stated he doesn't sedate his animals. A former volunteer for Drysdale advised Torstar the zookeeper allegedly castrated a water buffalo in Wainfleet with out sedation. Drysdale stated sedation was not obligatory for the process. The Toronto Zoo stated that, usually, employees carry out castrations below normal anesthesia as a result of they're so painful.

Drysdale stated he's a self-taught engineer, animal wrangler for movies and a world class archer. His identify doesn't seem within the credit of flicks he stated he educated animals for. “I don’t wish to be on this stuff,” he stated of the film credit.

Drysdale, who stated there isn't any schooling for dealing with massive cats, has no superior schooling in veterinary drugs or zoology.

On the Toronto Zoo, candidates want a level in biology and a minimal of two years working at a vet clinic, wildlife rehab centre or one other zoo, stated Naylor. Workers obtain no less than one other two years of coaching earlier than they qualify to deal with tigers and different harmful animals.

“Accreditation covers every thing from well being and security, to the safety of individuals, to the safety of animals, like the entire gamut,” stated Eric Cole, wildlife care director for the zoo, which is accredited by the Affiliation of Zoos and Aquariums, the business gold commonplace.

None of Drysdale’s zoos have been accredited, though he stated he isn't against provincial care requirements for unique animals.

Tigers and lions are by no means allowed to work together on the Toronto Zoo, Cole stated, and zoo employees contact the animals by way of obstacles and just for medical functions.

Drysdale stated his animals obtain wonderful care. He stated he doesn't practice his volunteers.

“All they did was feed and clear up crap,” Drysdale stated. “There is no such thing as a schooling that you would be able to go to. There is no such thing as a course you'll be able to take.”

He dismisses critics of his strategies, together with Zoocheck, which he claims is concentrating on him. Those that criticize his massive cat movies — together with one by which a juvenile lion in Wainfleet is fed a bundle of frozen rooster in styrofoam packaging and cellophane wrap — don’t know something about massive cats, he stated.

Quickly after Drysdale and his spouse opened their animal retreat in Grand Bend, issues started.

Residents complained about their screeching monkey and roaring cat neighbours, whose territorial calls can attain almost 115 decibels.

In April 2019, 19 days after the Drysdales arrange in Grand Bend, municipal councillors handed a bylaw banning unique pets in a matter of minutes. It sometimes takes months to go a bylaw. By that December, a decide granted the municipality’s request for an injunction requiring the Drysdales to take away their animals from the property.

The Drysdales fundraised $1,000 earlier than they packed up and briefly moved to northeastern Ontario.

By fall 2020, Drysdale and Cavers-Nyyssonen have been sharing a small trailer with a few of their animals, together with lion cubs, as they looked for a brand new location for his or her zoo.

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The Drysdales had a million-dollar concept for Maynooth.

Their zoo would turn into a safari-like expertise. Guests might keep in yurts on the Highland Massive Cat Adventures website and take a tour of the unique animals. He reckoned it will appeal to tens of hundreds of tourists.

“All our animals are very tame however in fact security is our important concern to guard visitors and residents,” Drysdale wrote to the Hastings County authorities in September 2020.

Drysdale bought a 36-hectare plot of land alongside Peterson Street. The lumber-and-wire enclosures, hidden behind bushes and a small crimson barn, couldn't be seen from the highway.

The property was zoned for agriculture, and the township advised the Drysdales that unique animals weren’t thought-about livestock. Drysdale dismissed the warnings.

“They simply opened up and commenced to function,” stated Hastings Highlands Councillor Alex Walder, including the Drysdales ignored repeated requests for zoning functions.

There have been public complaints about Drysdale’s property. Whereas the method began with “good intentions actually from either side,” recalled then-mayor Vic Bodnar, the municipality was shocked to study of Drysdale’s troubled historical past.

With no provincial legal guidelines banning the personal possession of harmful, unique animals, municipalities are sometimes left to craft bylaws after the actual fact — as had been the case with Drysdale’s earlier zoos.

The township turned to Queen’s Park for assist.

There was already laws mandating the humane care of animals — from canines to orca whales — enforced by 100 inspectors province-wide. However the Provincial Animal Welfare Companies Act doesn't ban personal possession of lions or tigers.

In March 2021, Ontario’s Solicitor Common Sylvia Jones responded to Hastings Highlands’s request for extra unique animal laws, saying the ministry had a need to develop rules however that “retroactivity can be a difficulty.” She beneficial that the municipality go its personal bylaw within the meantime.

“Had (rules/laws) been executed by the province, it will have been executed in a single fell swoop and it will have taken lots of the stress off the municipalities,” Bodnar stated.

It might take almost a 12 months for Hastings Highlands to go a bylaw banning harmful animals, a laborious course of Walder stated was essential to keep away from a lawsuit.

Whereas the politicians and attorneys debated, Drysdale’s feline household expanded. Gabby the lioness birthed three cubs, though solely two survived.

Animal rights teams say Ontario has among the weakest legal guidelines in Canada.

There are fewer legislative obstacles to purchasing a lion than there are to purchasing a pit bull in Ontario, a jurisdiction that bans the canines. Underneath B.C.’s Wildlife Act, most of Drysdale’s animals are unlawful for people to personal with no particular allow.

When requested why Ontario doesn't have provincial unique animal legal guidelines, a spokesperson for the Ministry of the Solicitor Common and Animal Welfare Companies stated Ontario’s present rules are superior to previous laws.

These rules did nothing to guard Tamara, who was left alone on July 4, 2021, when Drysdale and his spouse took a drive within the late afternoon. The tiger was in a typical space, related to the tiger and lion cages.

Drysdale and Tammy acquired into an altercation. Police arrested Drysdale.

Whereas he was in custody, his spouse’s namesake was killed by the lions. Drysdale stated he left a swing door — primarily a big doggy door — unlocked and Tamara squeezed by way of right into a cage crammed with lions.

However an OPP report says holes had been dug from the lion cages into the frequent space. No less than one was blocked with a rock when officers arrived on July 7. The report stated the hungry lions dug their manner out to assault the tiger. Drysdale stated he feeds his lions each three days, “that’s why my cats aren’t chubby.” He stated the lions didn't eat Tamara throughout the deadly encounter.

Drysdale later pleaded responsible to assault, forcible confinement, harmful operation of a motorized vehicle and possessing firearms in a spot aside from the place he was allowed to have them. Drysdale claims the July 4 altercation with Cavers-Nyyssonen was not violent and the gun cost was the results of preserving his custom-made AR-15 rifles on a property aside from his house.

In line with courtroom information, he served 61 days in pretrial custody and was sentenced to an extra 30 days in jail.He stated he spent a few of that point in hospital to be handled for an unrelated mind harm.

Cavers-Nyyssonen couldn't be reached by Torstar.

As for the PAWS animal welfare prices, Drysdale stated he intends to battle them in courtroom.

After Tamara’s loss of life and his arrest, Drysdale’s zoo was swiftly torn down and his animals got to different folks however Torstar couldn't verify who has them.

Animal rights teams and metropolis officers say they don’t know the place the animals are.

Drysdale, who insists he's the sufferer of overzealous animal rights teams, corrupt politicians and unfair information media, stated he's contemplating organising a brand new zoo.

“I'm bringing them again. That’s for positive,” he stated, though he additionally mused about leaving Canada solely. “I can be getting all my animals again.”