‘Tiger King’ would have been more disturbing if it had focused on the big cat trade
"Albino" tigers are often just captive individuals bred for specific, atypical features. (Uriel Sobaranes/Unsplash/)This story originally featured on The Conversation.Netflix’s new docuseries Tiger King takes viewers into the strange world of big cat collectors. Featuring eccentric characters with names like Joe Exotic and Bhagavan “Doc” Antle, the series touches on polygamy, addiction, and personality cults, while exploring a mysterious disappearance and a murder-for-hire.To Allison Skidmore, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who studies wildlife trafficking, the documentary didn’t bring enough attention to the scourge of captive big cats.A former park ranger, Skidmore first started studying the issue in the US after the infamous death of Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe in 2015. She was shocked to learn about how little oversight there was stateside. We asked her about the legality, incentives, and ease of buying and selling tigers.How many captive tigers are in the US?Unfortunately, there’s...