May 10, 2021

DEAR FRIENDS,

SHARK's drones have recorded the sad plight of animals trapped at the new Tiger King zoo, located in Thackerville, Oklahoma. The Lowe family, which runs that shameful disaster, was not happy about our presence and took their anger out against us.

Please read this story from Roadside Zoo News that covered SHARK's work and the harassment the Lowes enacted against SHARK's investigators:
 
SHARK President Steve Hindi said he and his team use technology to document exotic animal abuse, canned hunts, cock fighting, pigeon shooting and other animal mistreatment. His group previously obtained drone footage of Tiger King Park in October 2020. 

“We were there for four days because we wanted to be able to show the consistency of the animal’s stress, their repetitive behavior, how the whole operation was working or not working,” Hindi said. 

And:

While obtaining the footage at Tiger King Park, Hindi said his group was harassed by Jeff and Lauren and by Jeff’s adult son Taylor, who used a rifle with a scope to try to shoot down the group’s drone numerous times during the course of their four-day investigation. The Thackerville Sheriff’s Office said SHARK wasn’t breaking any laws.

SHARK obtained footage of Jeff honking his horn at them, which they say happened twice and is against Oklahoma law. They also obtained footage of Taylor racing past their investigators. In a letter to the Thackerville Sheriff, Hindi said he suspected Taylor was going between 80 and 100 miles per hour when he drove past. SHARK is asking the sheriff’s office to cite Jeff and Taylor.

A few days after our mission in OK was over, the USDA and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service served the Lowe's with a "Search and Seizure Warrant," so their troubles are escalating at a serious pace. And on top of that, this story from KXII tells how a neighbor of the Tiger King Park filed a public nuisance complaint against Lowe and his park, and mentions the drones flying over the zoo.

What we filmed during our two trips filming the Lowes proves to us that they are running a horrendous operation. We hope that the federal government takes action and shuts this disgusting zoo down!
 

On May 1st, SHARK and our partners at the Humane Farming Association scored another victory in our Crush Cockfighting campaign when we shut down a major cockfight!  Acting on a tip, we were monitoring a property suspected of conducting cockfights in Atoka County, Oklahoma. We had earlier droned the property, observing dozens of huts for fighting roosters, and we had also observed and filmed even more roosters at a neighboring property. 

We saw that a cockfight was in progress, so we called the Atoka County Sheriff's Office. Multiple law enforcement vehicles dispatched to the scene. The cockfighters reportedly locked the gate on the property to hold the officers back and fled the scene. We have provided our drone footage to the sheriff's office, and we await word of further action. We will continue to monitor this property, and we are pleased that we have now cracked the security that has kept Oklahoma cockfights in the shadows. We look forward to many more cockfight busts throughout Oklahoma going forward.

The cockfighting property, taken with our drone. The small boxes at the bottom are where the roosters are kept.

 

We recently released THIS video exposing the relationship between Edward Bruce DiDonato, pigeon shooter and president of the notorious Philadelphia Gun Club where live pigeon shoots are held, and New Jersey based Rider University. Our video focused on the gun club’s long history of targeting female protestors for abuse, including when DiDonato himself used his large SUV to intimidate and harass peaceful protesters.

Our video was covered by Rider University’s own newspaper, and that was enough to make the Administration scramble to remove a page on their website that still had DiDonato listed as a member of the Board of Trustees. However, Rider still has a lecture hall named for DiDonato and we have since discovered new information regarding ties between DiDonato and Rider and we will be releasing that publicly in the coming weeks

Please contact President Dell'Omo and ask him remove DiDonato’s name from Rider’s lecture hall if he will not apologize and resign from the Philadelphia Gun Club.

Email: [email protected]
Phone Number: 609-896-5001


Left: Rider President Gregory G. Dell'Omo. Right: Edward Bruce DiDonato

 

If you support our efforts again animal abuse, then please consider making a generous donation. The on-the-ground effort against cockfighting, pigeon shooting, rodeos, zoos and more means hundreds and hundreds of hours crisscrossing the country. This is real field work. It is difficult and often dangerous, not to mention expensive, but if there is to be success, this is how it has to be done.

Please click the link below to donate: