Magic Jungle Wildlife Preserve<\/a>. It provides insight into Arthur’s recent struggles, so we’re sharing it.<\/p>\n“Initially, I was not going to jump into any controversy with PETA. However, Dirk was a friend since 1990 and that’s quite a long time. In the 1990s, we all were performing on the Las Vegas Strip with big cats\/magic shows. A friend just sent me the PETA press release regarding Dirk’s passing, I was outraged. I believed it to be malicious, threatening and utterly abhorrent. The last remaining years of Dirk’s life were utterly destroyed by animal rights fanatics. They published his home address, phone numbers and other private matters everywhere. As a result, he received continuing death threats, constant stalking and vandalism at his property and lived in great fear for his safety as well as the safety and welfare of his animals. Every one of these fanatics that had been stalking, threatening, and literally terrorizing him, now has blood on their hands. He would regularly call me to talk about what he was going through. He was really scared. He even took his Web site down and rarely went out. He was struggling to pay bills and even feed his animals, it was all just so sick. We have one of his black leopards here at our sanctuary and are reaching out to assist in any way possible to help rehome his beloved furry family. One of the last times we spoke we were discussing taking in his snow leopards or a few tigers. My friend Dirk was a lot of things, a savvy, thick-skinned business guy wasn’t really one of them. He was quite insecure, shy and rather humble. Overall, he was a really kind, caring person if you actually knew him. I had several intense conversations with him about retiring the animals and building new shows, he had stellar illusions. I felt performing with animals was outdated and wanted him to move on. Although that strained our friendship at times, we remained friends. I do not believe my friend Dirk died of a heart attack but, rather, of a broken heart. What these sick animal rights fanatics did to him and his animals was utterly inhumane whilst they raise millions allegedly fighting against inhumane treatment.”<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Throwback Las Vegas magician Dirk Arthur has died at 63. He passed away on Oct. 13, 2023. Arthur’s show featured exotic cats, and had not performed in Las Vegas for some time. We knew him, and he was a really nice guy, although his shows and reputation were marred by persistent controversies related to animal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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