Episode 12: Tiger, Tiger

Today on our show we’ll learn about Mabel Stark, one of the first female animal trainers. She was active for over sixty years and survived eighteen maulings during her career. In fact, it is notable that she lived through so many attacks considering the depth of her wounds—and the fact that penicillin was not commonly available until the late 1930s. During the 1920's she moved from circus to circus and husband to husband, avoiding the jaws of the Big Cats and possibly fate itself. But her love of big cats proved to be her ultimate undoing.