‘We want our cats back,’ Southern Nevada tiger owner says after raid

PAHRUMP — An old white pickup truck was sitting at the top of the driveway that leads to Karl Mitchell’s home Friday morning. For now, it’s the only thing keeping unwanted visitors from the premises, which has become much quieter in recent days.

That’s because Nye County officials executed a search warrant early Wednesday to seize seven tigers residing on the property, located in the 6000 block of North Woodchips Road. Sheriff’s officials used a SWAT vehicle known as a BearCat to bust down Mitchell’s gate and begin searching his trailer home.

Within hours of the warrant being served, Mitchell, 71, was arrested and booked at the Nye County Detention Center on misdemeanor charges of resisting a public officer and possession of a gun by a prohibited person. He is due in Pahrump Justice Court on May 15.

The tigers, meanwhile, were evaluated by a veterinarian before being transported to the Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, according to police documents.

“They knocked them out, dragged them from where they live — this peace and harmony — and took them to Tornado Alley in a truck,” Mitchell told the Las Vegas Review-Journal in an interview Friday. “Some of them have never been in a truck before.”

The Nye County Sheriff’s Office said Wednesday they had seized the tigers from Mitchell’s residence because he lacked the correct permits to own the exotic animals. But Mitchell contended to the Review-Journal that those permits should not apply to Mitchell’s case because he is keeping them as emotional support animals, rather than to be exhibited for the entertainment of others — an important distinction, Mitchell said.

Mitchell is a disabled Vietnam War veteran who said he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder nearly seven years ago. Even with a 2024 note from Mitchell’s licensed clinician through the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, which prescribed his tigers as emotional support animals, Mitchell said the county insists he also needs the requisite Special Conditions Animal permit and Conditional Use Permit.

Both of those are required to possess an exotic animal in Nye County, officials told the Review-Journal on Thursday.

“Federal law doesn’t say I need a land use permit for my emotional support animals,” Mitchell said. “I have constitutional rights as well as property rights, and I don’t need your permits to exist in my world.”

A Pahrump resident for decades, Mitchell told the Review-Journal he’s kept exotic animals with him for nearly the entirety of his tenure living in Southern Nevada. And from photographs with Las Vegas stalwarts like former mayors Oscar and Carolyn Goodman to letters from Strip resort operators thanking him for his appearances, Mitchell’s history of handling lions, tigers, ligers and other exotics appears to be well-documented.

“They’re gonna try to make Karl out to be the bad guy, but he’s not,” said his fiancée, Catherine Griffiths, who said she was also briefly detained Wednesday, though she was not placed under arrest.

‘Force and fear makes those animals risky and shy’

Mitchell said his love for animal training started once he was discharged from the Marine Corps after serving about four years in the Vietnam War. Once back at his hometown of Compton, California, Mitchell said he trained the family house cat — affectionately named “Mittens” — to ride on his motorcycle.

A short while after, Mitchell met famed animal trainer Ray Berwick after a live animal performance he was hosting at Universal Studios Hollywood. Mitchell said he had brought Mittens along to showcase to Berwick his talents as a trainer.

Berwick must have liked what he saw, Mitchell said, because he was soon hired by the famous handler as an assistant.

“He was very much my mentor,” Mitchell said. “He always called me ‘kid,’ so I knew he liked me, too.”

The 1990 obituary of Berwick featured in the Los Angeles Times claimed he was a pioneer in the use of positive reinforcement — a training technique that rewards an animal for exhibiting a desired behavior through a positive stimulus, like food, when prompted. The method remains an important pillar for Mitchell even today, as he said it’s critical that big cats like the tigers he cared for do not grow to resent their caretakers.

“If you have to inflict any kind of negativity, it’s never going to work,” Mitchell said. “Force and fear makes those animals risky and shy. For a long time, there was really no chance to get up close with these exotics because of the force and fear most trainers would use.”

Mitchell worked under Berwick on a number of Hollywood productions as an animal trainer, he said, but by the late 1980s, he turned his focus away from the silver screen and instead began coordinating photo shoots with exotic animals and training others for live performances, particularly in Las Vegas, where he met celebrities including boxing icon Mike Tyson and actor Liv Tyler.

By 1998, Mitchell had founded Big Cat Encounters, a now-defunct nonprofit that at one point had allowed him to open his Pahrump home to the public. According to an archived version of its website, Big Cat Encounters was established to “educate the public of the perils facing the Bengal Tiger and other species” in danger of extinction, and archived photos show celebrities Carlos Santana, Paris Hilton, Megan Fox and more interacting with Mitchell’s big cats.

Prior run-ins with law enforcement

Previous reporting by the Review-Journal, the Pahrump Valley Times and other news outlets have chronicled Mitchell’s battles with local authorities over his tigers.

In 2015, the Pahrump Valley Times reported on a Fifth District Court ruling that ordered Mitchell until Sept. 10 of that year to remove 10 tigers from a Pahrump property purported to belong to Ray Mielzynski. Mitchell told the publication in a July 31, 2015, report that he would continue to work with county officials to reach an amicable arrangement for his big cats to stay at the property — but would defy the order if he was unable to strike a deal.

According to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Mitchell has been fined more than $100,000 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for violating the federal Animal Welfare Act.

But the Pahrump newspaper reported in 2019 the Nye County Commission voted to grant Mitchell’s appeal and reverse the denial of a Special Conditions Animal Permit. Commissioners, however, carved out an exception restricting Mitchell from exhibiting tigers or transporting them for any reason other than to give them medical care or in the event of an emergency. If Mitchell is transporting the big cats, Mitchell is required to provide Nye County Animal Control at least 24 hours’ notice, according to the 2019 Pahrump Valley Times report.

In the search warrant affidavit released by Nye County on Thursday, officials outlined at least 13 previous cases filed with the Nye County District Attorney’s office dating to 2017 and that he “has a documented history of aggression and noncompliance with regulatory authorities,” including threats and attempted violence against enforcement personnel.

Authorities said Mitchell has not held a so-called Special Conditions Animal permit since April 2022, as it was rendered void when his Conditional Use Permit expired.

They also reached out to the U.S. Department of Agriculture on March 10 and received confirmation the department in 2001 had permanently revoked all permits issued to Mitchell, the affidavit said. The USDA also prohibits agents from contacting him due to officer safety concerns, citing previous threats to shoot inspectors on his property, according to the affidavit. Investigators further noted previous attempts to obstruct inspectors had resulted in the loss of his exhibitor’s license under the federal Animal Welfare Act.

‘We want our cats back’

While the removal of Mitchell’s tigers drew the ire of some locals — like convicted retired “Hollywood Madam” Heidi Fleiss, who operates a bird sanctuary on her Pahrump property — other exotic animal enthusiasts celebrated.

In a video posted on X on Thursday, Joe Maldonado — also known as “Joe Exotic” and the central figure in Netflix’s 2020 docuseries “Tiger King” — rebuffed a claim by Mitchell that some of the seven tigers taken during Wednesday’s seizure had previously belonged to Maldonado.

The Odessa, Florida-based Big Cat Rescue, whose chief executive Carole Baskin was also featured in the “Tiger King” series, also posted a blog post earlier this week celebrating Mitchell’s recent run-in with law enforcement.

“For decades, the winds that whip across the desert plains of Pahrump, Nevada, carried more than sand,” the blog post read. “They carried the low, guttural roars of captive tigers — tigers whose voices went unheard, whose suffering persisted far too long in the shadow of failed justice. But now, finally, that chapter has closed.”

Mitchell said Friday he wants his tigers back.

“It’s gonna be a long road (to get them back), but I got bright headlights,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell said the fight is just starting.

He said he will explore his legal options in an effort to have his tigers returned to him.

“We want our cats back,” Griffiths said. “Someone asked the question of if we’d get other cats, and it’s like what kind of question is that? If someone kidnapped your kid and someone asked that, wouldn’t it be a little hurtful? We want our babies back.”

Contact Casey Harrison at charrison@reviewjournal.com. Follow @Casey_Harrison1 on X or @casey-harrison.bsky.social on Bluesky.