'Tiger King's' Carole Baskin Taking 'Precautions' In Case Joe Exotic Gets Early Release From Prison

Carole Baskin is opening up about her concerns regarding Joe Exotic and the precautions she's taking to protect herself and her family in case he is released from prison early.

Ahead of the release of her Discovery+ series "Carole Baskin's Cage Fight," the 60-year-old animal rights activist and Big Cat Rescue founder told Entertainment Tonight that she has been threatened and attacked numerous times over the years.

"The public only knows about the murder-for-hire plot that happened in 'Tiger King.' But these people have been threatening to kill me for years," Baskin told ET. "I have been physically attacked when I go to speak at Florida Wildlife Commission hearings, or when I go speak before Congress or at state legislation. They don't want me to talk about why these cats don't belong in private hands, and they will do anything to stop me."

Baskin added that she trusts that the judge will give Exotic the ultimate sentencing. However, in the event that he is released from prison early, she is ready for whatever happens.

"We have taken all kinds of precautions to protect me and my family and the sanctuary, and so, we may have to step those up even further, but right now we've done about all that we can to ensure our safety," she added.

Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, is currently serving a 22-year sentence in federal prison after being convicted of trying to hire two different men to kill Baskin.

In July, a federal appeals court found that the trial court wrongly treated those two convictions separately in calculating his prison term under sentencing guidelines and ruled that he should get a shorter sentence, the Associated Press reported. The court ordered the trial court to re-sentence Exotic, who has maintained his innocence.

Exotic was also found guilty last year of killing five tigers, selling tiger cubs and falsifying wildlife records.

Carole Baskin and her husband Howard previously claimed they would support his early release from prison. But in an April interview with Mirror, Howard made it clear that this would only happen if Exotic, in turn, supported the Big Cat Safety Act, a mandate that prohibits ownership of big cats such as lions and leopards.

Baskin has since gained control of Exotic's cat property, where she discovered his mistreatment of the tigers and big cats he housed there — something she will discuss in her upcoming docuseries.

Baskin said she has enlisted the help of Exotic's niece and other family members who have since turned against him to tell the story Netflix's "Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness" failed to show. Among his family members' revelations was that Exotic "cut the teeth out of all of those cats and was making jewelry out of them," Baskin alleged.

According to Baskin, her upcoming docuseries will focus on "what we are all about and what we have been doing for 30 years," which include "doing the investigations that we do, finding who these bad guys are and then bringing them to justice."

Netflix is also releasing a sequel to "Tiger King," which Baskin previously said she wanted no part of. But she told Variety in September that she will be watching it in order to defend herself against the allegedly false claims she expects to be made about her.

"Carole Baskin's Cage Fight" streams Saturday on Discovery+.