It hasn't been a good spring for Chesapeake Energy and Aubrey McClendon. The stock price has plummeted, shareholders have filed lawsuits, and the only media outlets that will provide positive media coverage are the Oklahoman and OKC Friday.
Now comes this startling revelation: Chesapeake Energy is feeding small children to tiger cubs.
From Reuters:
The Humane Society of the United States is accusing an Oklahoma exotic animal park of allowing children to handle and pose for photographs with juvenile tigers in what they called "a petting zoo for carnivores."
Joe Schreibvogel, owner of the G.W. Exotic Animal Park, 65 miles south of Oklahoma City, denies the allegations, and he said on Thursday that the humane society simply wants to bankrupt him.
Wayne Pacelle, head of the animal rights organization, contends that allowing visitors to handle the unpredictable felines placed the visitors at risk.
The Humane Society sent an undercover operative to work at the park last year to videotape what he saw, including children mingling with exotic cats that are too old to be safe playmates. The investigator witnessed or heard about six incidents in which tiger cubs bit or scratched park visitors, Pacelle said.
Schreibvogel said he plans to file animal cruelty charges against the humane society's undercover operative for failing to correct the alleged deficiencies in animal care described in his report, including an allegation that a bear had no water on a hot day last year.
"That was what he was trained and paid to do," Schreibvogel said. "We are on our way to the sheriff's office as soon as I hang this phone up."
Pacelle said he fears a disaster similar to one in Zanesville, Ohio, last year, when the owner of a private collection of 56 tigers, bears and other wild animals freed them from their cages and then shot himself to death. Authorities killed 49 of the beasts as they ran wild through the area.
U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesman David Sacks said an investigation is being conducted into the deaths of 23 tiger cubs at the Oklahoma park in 2009 and 2010.
This is the fourth time the agency has investigated the park and its owner for violations of the Animal Welfare Act, which protects warm-blooded animals that are displayed to the public for compensation, Sacks said.
In a 2006 agreed decision, Schreibvogel was fined $25,000 and had his exhibitor's license suspended for two weeks for deficiencies at his park.
Wait. That story doesn't mention Chesapeake or Aubrey McClendon at all. Sorry, I guess I got confused. Any time I see a Reuters story about Oklahoma I just assume it's a negative article about Chesapeake. You know, kind of like how whenever you hear Charles Barkley talk about the Thunder you just assume he's going to say the team relies too much on jump shots. The only difference is the Charles Barkley can't bring down the Thunder and destroy the Oklahoma economy.
This would probably be a good spot to give an update at what's going on at Chesapeake, but between the slight redesign we're about to launch, the NBA playoffs, and helping Clark Matthews prepare for the Sooner State Games checkers tournament, I haven't had the time to follow what's going on. And yes, those are all just basic excuses for my general laziness and inability to comprehend complex business and legal terminology.
Anyway, back to the animal park. I'm pretty sure I stumbled across the guy who own that place one day on a drive to Dallas. I stopped at the McDonald's in either Pauls Valley or Purcell or something and some dude was charging people money to set in cage with a tiger cub. At the time, I remember thinking it was kind of odd, cruel and dangerous. Who the hell wants to be put in a cage with an animal that wants to eat you for dinner? If I'm going to be eaten by a tiger, it better be while on a voyage through India or Siberia and not in a small town that's home to a Love's Travel Stop and Action Figure Museum. That would be embarrassing. Hopefully that weird animal park gets shut down and all the animals can be sent to zoos where they can be treated nicely while living the rest of their lives in captivity.
