The "Tiger Lady" of Jackson Township, NJ, Joan Byron-Marasek, (the Garden State's precursor of Antoine Yates, Harlem resident and tiger owner) has lost the 24 tigers that would roam her 13-acre Tigers Only Preservation Society compound. After five years of battling with NJ state wildlife agency (especially after a 1999 incident where a 430 tiger found roaming NJ backwoods had to be shot; Byron-Marasek never confirmed it was hers), Byron-Marasek's tigers are going to a wild animal refuge in Texas. Byron-Marasek said about that the move was "tantamount to removing children who are happy and healthy and loved and putting them in the home of a known child abuser and rapist." Carol Asvestas, director of the Wild Animal Orphanage, told the NY Times that NJ tigers appeared to be filthy and in poor health, and that "a couple have chronic diarrhea and they obviously have intestinal parasites. The animals kept in some small chutes are covered with feces and urine you can just smell it."
Susan Orlean wrote a great New Yorker feature about Byron-Marasek.
