Carole Baskin

Carole Baskin

Carole Baskin is an American big-cat rights activist and CEO of Big Cat Rescue. She has been the subject of internet memes and conspiracy theories related to the disappearance of her second husband, Don Lewis, in 1997. She was featured in the 2020 Netflix documentary series Tiger King about Oklahoma-based private zoo operator Joe Exotic.

About Carole Baskin in brief

Summary Carole BaskinCarole Baskin is an American big-cat rights activist and CEO of Big Cat Rescue, a non-profit animal sanctuary based near Tampa, Florida. She was featured in the 2020 Netflix documentary series Tiger King about Oklahoma-based private zoo operator Joe Exotic. She has been the subject of internet memes and conspiracy theories related to the disappearance of her second husband, Don Lewis, in 1997. In 2020, she was cast in season 29 of Dancing with the Stars and danced a paso doble with partner Pasha Pashkov to Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” She has a long-running feud with Joseph Allen Maldonado, the former owner of the Greater Greater Greater Pets organization, who proposed to her in November 2003.

The case of Lewis’s disappearance is still open as of October 2020, and the investigation into his death is still ongoing. She is a member of the board of directors of No More More Pets, a group that advocates for homeless cats and other animals in need of shelter. She and her husband Don founded Wildlife on Easy Street, an animal sanctuary near Tampa for big cats, in 1992. The sanctuary was renamed to Big Cat rescue sometime after Lewis’s disappeared in 1997 and she is the current chief executive officer of the sanctuary. She also has a podcast called “The Cat Chat” about big cats and zoos. She met her current husband Howard in 2003 and they married in November 2004.