Credit: James Breeden/Daily Mail

Despite Joe Exotic’s incarceration and the pandemic, the park is open for business.

The name “Joe Exotic” has likely crossed your line of sight at least once in the last few months. That is because the Netflix docu-series Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness was the top-rated streaming series for quite a long stretch, and just about the whole country was talking about it. The bizarre history and mannerisms of zoo owner and entertainer Joe Exotic have been talking points on social media and message boards since the show was released. Though Exotic is currently in prison (for reasons you’d know if you watched the show), it seems his park has once again opened to the public, and the public are quite eager to get in thanks to the show’s publicity.

The G.W. Exotic Animal Park, recently renamed to Tiger King Park, was closed when the pandemic started in earnest, but reopened last weekend to hundreds of visitors. The park was granted clearance by the CDC to reopen, provided both visitors and workers wore masks, maintained sufficient cleanliness, and followed social distancing protocols. Unfortunately, the majority of visitors and staff seemed to have shirked these protocols, going by various pictures taken by the Daily Mail.

Credit: James Breeden/Daily Mail

The park is currently under management by new owner Jeff Lowe and head zookeeper Erik Cowie, both of whom were pictured disregarding social distancing protocols. Despite this, Lowe has stated that he hopes the park’s reopening can be a new start, as well as an effort to distance the brand from Joe Exotic.

Despite his questionable portrayal in the Netflix series, Lowe has insisted his acquisition of the park from Exotic was on the up and up. “Netflix wanted you to believe that I stole the zoo from Joe and Joe wants you to believe it as well, [but] he begged me to buy it,” he said.