Heir to circus dynasty wants to be UK’s answer to Joe Exotic
BY JON HEBDITCH reporters@dailyrecord.co.uk
AN ANIMAL trainer who kept big cats at his Scots compound has been “inundated” with offers from TV companies to be Britain’s Tiger King.
Thomas Chipperfield has been performing with big cats for years, including in travelling shows in Scotland – and particularly in the north-east, where he used to live.
And since the success of the Netflix hit Tiger King, Thomas said UK production companies had been in touch with him about making him a British Joe Exotic.
The 30-year-old has previously drawn ire from animal rights activists for his acts and his treatment of lions and tigers.
But now he wants to run his own zoo – just like Joe Exotic and his arch-enemy Carole Baskin in the Netflix series.
Speaking to the Record from his new home – which he won’t disclose the location of for fear of attacks on him or neighbours by animal rights protesters – he said: “I’ve probably had about 80 offers from TV people altogether, and about a dozen of them just since Tiger King came out.
“It has been pretty crazy but it just shows how fascinated people are by the animals.
“I’m not like Joe Exotic – I’ve got quite a normal life really.”
Thomas lives on rented land with his partner and a menagerie of animals, including birds, skunks, possums, reptiles, a racoon, two lions and a tiger.
He previously helped run popular circus shows featuring big cats around the UK, and his family have been in the business for centuries.
His animals used to be based in St Combs, near Fraserburgh.
Thomas has mixed feelings on Tiger King and the impression it has given of big cat keepers. While the
US series tells the story of largerthan-life American big cat keepers, he believes most people in the industry are more down to earth.
He said: “On one hand, it didn’t do the impression of exotic animal keepers any favours.
“You see these guys with dozens and dozens of tigers, these Joe Exotic types and the other lot are put on the show as examples of what keepers are like.
“But a lot of these people are just criminals – and that is on the programme.
“On the other hand, it does show a lot of the hypocrisy with the animal rights people and their sanctuaries.
“There isn’t a sanctuary on earth that doesn’t copy the practices of a zoo, not the other way around.”
The coronavirus pandemic has held back Thomas’s plans to open a zoo.
He said: “We haven’t been able to do any work for a good few months now.
“We want to open our own zoo, we rent the land just now so we don’t have the freedom to do just what we like.
“I’ve been kept pretty busy with the animals and we just need to keep our eyes open for when things go back to normal.”