This week on 60 Minutes, Jon Wertheim and a 60 Minutes team reported on the ambitious rescue mission to move an entire zoo full of animals from Puerto Rico to animal sanctuaries across the mainland United States.
Pat Craig , founder of The Wild Animal Sanctuary and leader of the operation, is no stranger to this kind of work. He has emerged as the go-to guy for high-stakes animal rescues around the world, including cases where the U.S. government is involved.
In 2021, the Department of Justice dispatched Craig to retrieve big cats that had been kept by the so-called “Tiger King” Joe Exotic , made famous by the hit Netflix series, and his associate Jeff Lowe.
Correspondent Jon Wertheim and the 60 Minutes team traveled to The Wild Animal Sanctuary in Colorado and met tigers that were rescued from Joe Exotic’s operation.
In an interview outside these tigers’ massive outdoor enclosure, Craig said many of them had been kept in cages and couldn’t walk more than a few paces before reaching the bars and having to turn around. When they arrived at the sanctuary, they showed signs that they had been underfed.